Hal Linden was born Harold Lip****z in New York City in 1931, but changed his last name—inspired by the town of Linden, New Jersey—when he got into show business. While I was interviewing Linden about the new Barney Miller complete series DVD box set, I asked him about this, wondering if there’d ever been a famous person named Lip****z who didn’t change his name. “Well, there’s a sculptor,” he said. “Jacques Lipchitz. Maybe a few others. Not so well-known, I guess.” Does he think he could’ve made it as a TV star as Harold Lip****z? “Back then, no way. Now, it might be different.”

Myself, I’m not so sure that Linden’s right about that. I wonder if Mr. Lip****z might’ve had more of a shot than he suspects. Linden became a star onstage in the ’60s and then a household name in the ’70s, at a time when show business seemed more open to performers with unusual looks, weird names, and urban attitudes. Linden is classically handsome, with a profile that looks like it was carved out of marble, but from the bushy mustache he wore while playing Barney Miller to his willingness to look rumpled, he fit right into the era of Peter Falk, Al Pacino, and Woody Allen. He was very much the lumpy New Yorker.

Hal Linden was at first reluctant to take what would turn out to be his signature role. “I didn’t want to leave New York,” he said. He’d recently won a Tony for playing the lead in the musical The Rothschilds, and was fielding offers left and right. (“I was hot that year.”) But his agent convinced him that it wouldn’t hurt to fly out to Los Angeles and shoot the pilot for what was then called The Life And Times Of Captain Barney Miller. The pilot didn’t get picked up, but it drew some attention when ABC burned it off as part of their summertime Just For Laughs series in 1974, so the network ordered 13 episodes to run as a midseason replacement in 1975. The show went on to run for seven more full seasons, performing solidly and even producing a spinoff: the Abe Vigoda-starring Fish

http://www.avclub.com/articles/hal-linden-that-70s-man,64850/

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I totally agree that changing his professional name was the right thing to do!!

It's a shame that stars actually think they have to change their names to be successful, but in Linden's case, if that's what it took, I'm all for it. I wouldn't want to have missed out on the great acting of this man.

If changing his name gave him a better feeling about himself or his career I see nothing wrong with it. On a certain level, I think the public wants a name that's easy to latch onto.

I think given the era he came from, changing his name was likely a good idea. It certainly hasn't hurt him!

IMO, the more of Hal Linden on TV the better; always enjoyed him no matter what he did. Still a great looking guy too, even @ 80

Not to mention a great singer!! He released his first album of standards this year and his voice is terrific. :cool: :D

Well, the man's last name has the word s h i t in it. I would have changed it also.

I went to high school with a kid with the last name D i c k. He was one grade ahead of me in school. In the 9th grade, we had PE and the coach would call us by our last name, military style, so everyone had a laugh at D i c k's expense. Tim Allen changed his name from D i c k. I wouln't have that name either.

I myself would hate to have an obscenity within my surname.

Ralph Lauren, a fashion designer, was originally named Ralph Lif$#i+z, until his brother Terry changed his and Ralph's surname to Lauren to avoid the unfortunate obscenity reference the "Lif$#i+z" surname had in English, although Ralph's brother Lenny retained the surname.

Apparently Ralph was teased about it in school. “My given name has the word $#i+ in it,” he told Oprah Winfrey. “When I was a kid, the other kids would make a lot of fun of me. It was a tough name. That's why I decided to change it. Then people said, "Did you change your name because you don't want to be Jewish?" I said, "Absolutely not. That's not what it's about. My cousins who lived in California had changed their last name to Lawrence. So I just thought, "I'm going to pick a nice last name"—it wasn't particularly connected to anything or anyone."

not many people realize that Rockford Files's James Garner was born James Scott Baumgarner, and he changed it after he served in Korea and got shot in the ass.
Some names don't sound too glamorous and need to be changed, look at steven segal.