From veteran superstars Dilip Kumar (born as Muhammad Yusuf Khan) and Nargis Dutt (born as Fatima Rashid) to the current superstars Akshay Kumar (born as Rajiv Bhatia) and Sunny Deol (born as Ajay Singh Deol), various Bollywood actors have been using screen names from last many decades. Another mainstream actress, who has starred in multiple hits, is also an addition to this list.
Kiara Advani was born as Alia Advani to Jagdeep Advani, a businessman and Genevieve Jaffrey, a teacher on July 31, 1991. Before making her debut in Bollywood, she changed her name and this change has a Salman Khan connection, and as well as a Priyanka Chopra connection.
In an interview with Filmfare in 2019, Kiara said, "My name has been Kiara since my debut in 2014. I didn’t want to confuse the audience with Alia Bhatt, an established superstar. It just felt like the right thing to do - to have your own identity. Why have two Alias?". She even shared the Priyanka Chopra connection behind choosing her screen name as she continued, "The name, Kiara, was inspired from Priyanka Chopra’s movie Anjaana Anjaani, where she introduces herself as, 'Hi, I’m Kiara.' I thought, 'What a beautiful name. If I have a daughter, I’ll call her Kiara.' But before that I needed a name for myself. So, I took it on."
In an episode of the Voot’s Feet Up with the Stars Season 2 in 2019, Kiara had revealed that Salman Khan, who made a special appearance in the title song of her debut Bollywood film Fugly, suggested she should change her first name Alia before entering Bollywood. "Alia is my first name. Salman Khan suggested me to change it because of Alia Bhatt because there can’t be two actresses with the same name in Bollywood. He suggested the change, but Kiara is the name that I chose. Now even my parents have started to call me Kiara", the Kabir Singh actress said.
Meanwhile, on the work front, Kiara Advani will be seen next in the pan-India political drama Game Changer. She will be sharing screen space with Ram Charan in the much-awaited film directed by Shankar. Though it hasn't been officially announced, Game Changer will be released on December 20 in its original Telugu language and dubbed versions in Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, and Kannada languages. Kiara also has War 2 with Hrithik Roshan and Jr NTR and Don 3 with Ranveer Singh lined up for release next year.
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