What's in a name?

In my last post, "Superman as Metaphor," I briefly discussed how some Jewish actors changed their names in Hollywood. I feel that this topic merits further discussion. Jewish actors changed their names because having a Jewish-sounding name could hinder their careers. Unfortunately, anti-Semitism made some people feel they needed to hide their ethnic background. When I read this in Kaplan's book, I immediately thought of the film "Gentleman's Agreement." This is a 1947 movie starring Gregory Peck and John Garfield and discusses anti-Semitism. In the bonus features on the dvd my mom has, there's a little documentary on various aspects of the film and the story it tells. Sadly, no Hollywood studio wanted to have anything to do with the production of this film because they tried to avoid touchy subjects in their films (they didn't want to rock the boat by discussing anti-Semitism). Finally the film was made. One of the actors in the film, John Garfield, was Jewish - his birth name was Jacob Garfinkle, but he changed it. Having seen this bonus feature in "Gentleman's Agreement" that discussed various Jewish actors changing their names, I was not at all surprised when I read about the name changing in Kaplan's book.

Understanding this portion of "the Jewish experience" (15) makes me also understand why the creators of Superman chose a very "American," boring name for him - Clark Kent. This name has no ethnic identity; it's blah. Frankly, I think that it's unfortunate that many Jewish actors changed their names. Personally, I think Jacob Garfinkle is much more interesting than John Garfield.