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Throwback Thursday: When Kiara Advani revealed she changed her first name Alia before entering Bollywood
Did you know Kiara Advani's name before entering Bollywood was Alia Advani? Her name change has a Priyanka Chopra and a Salman Khan connection.
Updated : Jun 24, 2022, 12:12 AM IST | Edited by : Aman Wadhwa
 "Kiara Advani/File photo")
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As Kiara Advani's next film JugJugg Jeeyo co-starring Varun Dhawan, Anil Kapoor, and Neetu Kapoor is all set to release this Friday, June 24, we take a look back on this Throwback Thursday, at the time when the Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 actress revealed that her real-life name is Alia and she changed it before entering Bollywood.
In an interview with Filmfare in 2019, Alia 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 Anjana Anjani, 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 hosted by the famous fashion designer Anaita Shroff Adajania, Kiara had revealed that Salman Khan, who made a special appearance in the title song of Kiara's 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 actress said in the episode of the 2019 chat show.
READ | Throwback Thursday: When Priyanka Chopra revealed what she would do if her husband cheated on her
It seems that Kiara has still kept Alia as her middle name since her Instagram handle name is kiaraaliaadvani, read as Kiara Alia Advani.
