Some music artists have never used their real names for their work in Hindi films. They adopted screen names early on in their careers and stuck with them all through. As a result, most of us know them only by their screen names. Artists adopted screen names for various reasons. Some did it to make their names audience-friendly – easier to pronounce and relate to. In the case of lyricists, this was often the result of the common practice in Urdu poetry to take on a takhallus or pen name. Another reason to taken on a screen name was to avoid confusion when there was already an established artist in the industry with the same name.
I am excluding instance of artists who used their real names with straightforward abbreviations, e.g.: Mukesh instead of Mukesh Chand Mathur. I am including only prominent artists in this list – there may be many others instances like these. This list also excludes artists who may be known popularly by their screen names but who have been credited by their real names at some point. You may find such artists in this post – Artist Aliases on MySwar
The list:
- Alisha Chinai – Sujata Chinai
- Anjaan – Lalji Pandey
- Anu Malik – Anwar Sardar Malik
- Anuradha Paudwal – Alka Nadkarni
- Asad Bhopali – Asadullah Khan
- Ash King – Ashutosh Ganguly
- Ashok Kumar – Kumudlal Ganguly
- B Praak – Pratik Bachan
- Babul Supriyo – Supriya Baral
- Badshah – Aditya Prateek Singh Sisodia
- Bappi Lahiri – Alokesh Aparesh Lahiri
- Blaaze – Lakshmi Narasimha Vijaya Rajagopal Seshadri Sharma Rajesh Raman
- Chic Chocolate – Antonio Xavier Vaz
- Daler Mehndi – Daler Singh
- Gulshan Bawra – Gulshan Kumar Mehta
- Gulzar – Sampooran Singh Kalra
- Hasrat Jaipuri – Iqbal Hussain
- Hemlata – Lata Bhatt
- Indeevar – Shyamalal Babu Rai
- Jagjit Singh – Jagmohan Singh
- Joi Barua – Jayanta Barua
- Kavi Pradeep – Ramchandra Baryanji Dwivedi
- Kavita Krishnamurthy – Sharada Krishnamurthy
- Kishore Kumar – Aabhas Kumar Ganguly
- KK – Krishnakumar Kunnath
- Krsna – Amitav Sarkar
- Kumaar – Rakesh Kumar Pal
- Loy Mendonsa – Aloysius Peter Mendosa
- Majrooh Sultanpuri – Asrar ul Hassan Khan
- Naqsh Lyallpuri – Jaswant Rai Sharma
- Neeraj – Gopaldas Saxena
- Noor Jehan – Allah Rakhi Wasai
- Qamar Jalalabadi – Om Prakash Bhandari
- Qateel Shifai – Aurangzeb Khan
- Raamlaxman – Vijay Patil
- Raftaar – Dilin Nair
- Rahat Indori – Rahat Qureshi
- Romy – Karan Yadav
- Safdar Aah – Mohammad Safdar
- Sahir Ludhianvi – Abdul Hayee
- Sarshar Sailani – Bhim Sain
- Shaan – Shantanu Mukherjee
- Shabbir Kumar – Shabbir Shaikh
- Shahryar – Akhlaq Mohammed Khan
- Shailendra – Shankardas Kesarilal
- Shakeel Badayuni – Shakeel Ahmed
- Shellee – Shailendra Singh Sodhi
- Sudarshan Faakir – Sudarshan Kamra
- Sunidhi Chauhan – Nidhi Chauhan
- Tochi Raina – Tarlochan Raina
- Verma Malik – Barkatrai Malik
- Vinod – Eric Roberts
- Yo Yo Honey Singh – Hirdesh Singh
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