How Emma Stone chose her name (and what she used to be called)

She went through quite a few options!

emma stone

by Stevie Martin |
Published on

We all know her as Emma Stone (and, y'know, she LOOKS like an Emma) but actually she's had a fair few names since finding out her actual one was already taken by another actress.

When signing up to the Screen Actors Guild, her real name - Emily Scott - was taken, and so Emma had to play around with other ideas. Her first choice wasn't even Emma, either.

"To ask a 16-year-old to pick a new name is really an interesting process, because I was like, 'I'm going to be Riley. My name is going to be Riley Stone,'" she told W Magazine.

"And so my name was Riley Stone for about six months and I did a guest spot on Malcolm in the Middle and one day they were like, 'Riley, Riley,' and I had no idea who they were talking to and they were like, 'Hey, hey come on we need you on set.' And I was like, 'Oh I'm not Riley, I can't be Riley.'"

When Riley didn't work out, she also tried Emily J Stone, which sort of tickled her fancy except "I didn't think I could pull of the J". We think she could. But anyway, she ended up changing it to Emma because it's closer to Emily, and as she puts it: "Most people call me M anyway."

This comes after the actress told The Sunday People that she'd really love to start a family:

"[I want to] Have a family. It makes me honestly flush because it feels like such a vulnerable thing to say. It’s such a crazy, incredible thing. I mean how wild to have children and a family."

Maybe call all your kids Emily J Stone? Just a suggestion.

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