Is Anne Hathaway changing her name because of Shakespeare’s wife?
Mia Thermopolis, Princess of Genovia, Fantine, Little Red Riding Hood, Meryl Streep’s harried assistant in The Devil Wears Prada. With so many roles successful Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway has played, she’s been known as a lot of different faces and by tons of different names. However, there’s one name she apparently hates more than anything: her own.
In an interview with The Tonight Show, Anne Hathaway revealed she regretted signing her SAG card with her own name. What???? How did we not know this, and why does she hate her name so much? Could it be because the other Anne Hathaway, the wife of Shakespeare you may have heard of in passing in your English class?
Fortunately, we have the tea on where the Anne-hatred comes from, and if we’re going to be calling the Oscar- Emmy- and Golden-Globe winning actress by a new name soon. Changing a name is a difficult task. By using name combiner you can get a new name easily.
Naming drama
Right off the bat, Jimmy Fallon asked his guest yesterday, Anne Hathaway, why he heard her nearest & dearest call her Annie. Hathaway appeared on Fallon’s show to promote her latest film, Locked Down. Since he knew her for a long time, Fallon wanted to know if he had the supposedly-coveted Annie privileges and if he could call her that.
Laughing, Anne Hathaway all-but demanded that Fallon call her Annie. “Call me Annie — everybody, everybody, call me Annie, please.” Then, she asked Fallon if they could talk about her name “for a second”.
Uh-oh! Trouble in Anne Hathaway’s paradise? Hathaway told Fallon that when she was fourteen years old, she had to get her SAG (Screen Actors’ Guild) card after appearing in a commercial. They told her to put down what she wanted to be known as and since Anne Hathaway sounded like a professional name, she signed the name on the dotted line. After all, Anne was her name, so why not?
“It never occurred to me that for the rest of my life, people would call me Anne,” she told Fallon.
“Middle-named”
Anyone who’s ever been “middle-named” can understand why Anne Hathaway doesn’t like being called Anne. She confessed to Jimmy Fallon that the only person who calls her Anne is her mother, and “only, like, when she’s really mad”, the actress explained. So whenever she’s called Anne in public, she admitted she feels like her adoring fans are mad at her (though she clarified she knows that’s not the case)!
For anyone who’s been fortunate enough not to be middle-named by a parent, well, it’s their loving way of letting you know you really messed up. When you hear your full government name across the playground, it’s enough to send chills down your spine. So when Bills become Williams, or Annies become Annes, it’s understandable that memories of them being in trouble resurface.
Even Fallon expressed his sympathy when he revealed his mother would use his middle name to get his attention. However, Anne Hathaway quickly pointed out that “nobody walked up to you and says ‘James Thomas! I saw you in your last film!’”
Other Anne
We’d be remiss if we didn’t point out the connection between Anne Hathaway & Shakespeare’s wife. Because as all studious high school students know, Billy Shakes’s wife was also named Anne Hathaway.
Although Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway was seven years his senior, she outlived the Bard by seven years. Her father was a yeoman farmer who left her some money to be doled out to her when she was married. There’s also evidence that Shakespeare & his wife were forced to marry after Anne Hathaway became pregnant with their first child, although it’s debated among historians if that was the case.
However, Anne Hathaway may not have been named Anne after all. In her father’s will, the wife of Shakespeare is called “Agnes Hathaway”, so some historians believe she should be called that instead.
Either way, it looks like Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway doesn’t care. She just wishes her fans would stop calling her by the name she heard when she got in trouble!
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Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway stars in Lockdown, which premiered on HBO Max Thursday night. Did you tune in? Did you know before reading this that Anne Hathaway didn’t like her name? Let us know in the comments!
