When John Abraham opened up about being asked to change his name: Why should I change it for anybody in this world?

It is not uncommon for up and coming actors to go by a different name when they try to catch their big break in the industry. During the initial days of his career, John Abraham too found himself being given the advice of changing the name he was baptised with, although the star chose not to do so in the end.

John spoke of the incident during a 2005 interview with Simi Garewal. John had made his Bollywood debut with Amit Saxena's Jism (2003). But before the role came his way, the actor had been offered a film called Aetbaar. One of the producers of the film had approached the actor and asked if he had another name. John recounted how he had said “I know John Abraham sounds like someone who has pizzas and burgers in his house and someone who cannot really fit in, like an English person”, and had told the producer about his Iranian name, Farhan.

The producer had suggested that John use that name in his films, reasoning that actors with the last name of Khan had been doing very well in the industry, including Salman, Aamir and Shah Rukh. The filmmaker had suggested John change his name to Farhan Khan.

John said that he was proud of his name, and he saw no reason to change it for anyone in the world. However, if he did have to change it, John said he would have changed it to Farhan Irani, since Irani was his mother’s maiden name.

During the interview, the actor had also opened up about his insecurities as a child, saying that he wanted to be taller and better looking, recalling how worried he had been about his pimples.