Ron Jeremy & Other Pornstars Reveal The Origins Of Their Stage Names

If you've ever spent time viewing pornography (and you have; pervert) you've probably noticed that pornstars have the weirdest, most ridiculous stage names. At the same time, why wouldn't you watch a video starring an actress whose last name rhymes with a part of the female anatomy? 

Using our intensely personal connection to the porn community, we did some digging around and asked our favorite porn stars to tell us the origins of their stage names. It's kind of like that game where you combine your pet's name and the street you grew up on to get your porn name...except with more backstory. Mine would be "Cora Fred-Jackson." What's yours? 

Belle Knox
"Belle is after Beauty and the Beast. Knox is after Amanda Knox. I love the idea of combining something sweet with something sinister."

Lexi Love
"I originally started out as Lexi Jones for a few weeks. My agent said that name sounded like a BBW girl and that I needed to change it. I was rather disappointed with the fact that I needed to change my name and what my agent had to say about my name choice. 

At first I tried to find names that rhymed with Lexi or sexy, sexy Lexi...then I moved on to marketable words and last names that I wouldn't mind being called by if someone was to write about me only using my last name. I ended up with Love. Sexy Lexi Love rolled off the tongue well and being called Ms. Love always makes me smile. And that's how Lexi Love was born." 

Stoya
"Stoya is a hand-me-down from my grandmother."

Joanna Angel
"My legal name is Joanna. I never thought of coming with a 'stage name' because I truly did not think I would actually be famous enough to need one. Once I had a few fans, I considered coming up with one, but it was a little too late. People already knew me as 'Joanna'. I added the name 'Angel' because of my website/ company: BurningAngel.com. It's sort of like we're married, or something."

Teagan Presley
"Teagan was the Irish name that my parents were going to name me, and then decided last minute they liked Ashley better. So I used Teagan. For one of my first scenes, the producer said I reminded him of Lisa Marie Presley, so the name Presley stuck."

Lexington Steele
"Before I began shooting video in NYC, I had shot for several adult magazines. The magazines had names for me that just got worse and worse each time. I still had a corporate job, but the opportunity to do video presented itself. It was 1997.

So, one afternoon I was going to midtown Manhattan on business. I looked at the street sign above my subway exit, 'Lexington Ave.' I liked the name because it was great in full and great abbreviated. The surname 'Steele' went well with the first name. It also sounded like a great name for a male performer."

Sophie Dee
"I took my name as people told me I look a lot like Sophie Dahl."

Asa Akira 
"Asa is my real name, it means 'morning' in Japanese. I  got 'Akira' from the Japanese anime movie."

Ron Jeremy
"That's easy. It's because it is his real name: Ron Jeremy Hyatt." — Ron Jeremy's agent.


Jeremy Glass is the Vice editor for Supercompressor and his favorite male porn star is still James Deen.