Strictly Come Dancing star Tess Daly was actually born with a totally different name.
The host has presented the BBC dance competition since 2004 – and has always used the name Tess in a professional capacity.
However, she was christened something completely different, and hasn’t officially changed it out of respect for her parents – though her mum Sylvia is the only person still using her previous name.
Even her showbiz hubby Vernon Kay calls her Tess.
But the star was actually christened Helen Elizabeth Daly – but when she started work as a model aged 17, there was already someone with the name ‘Helen Davies’ on the books.
So Tess was told to change her name because it was too similar.
She explained to Weekend: “My mum’s really the only person who still calls me Helen, and that’s not often.
“She tends to call me ‘love’, so when she does say ‘Helen’ it can take me a while to respond.”
The name Tess actually came about because the star’s agent at the time was “obsessed” with actress Nastassja Kinski – who starred in the film Tess – as they thought Tess Daly looked like her.
She explained: “So Tess it was. I was gullible and impressionable. Mind you, two weeks later I was in Japan then travelled the world. Paris, Milan, New York.
“I’ve never changed it by deed poll or anything because I think it would be disrespectful to my parents.”
Tess did, however, marry Vernon under her real name back in 2003.
She originally began her modelling journey after being scouted outside a McDonalds restaurant with her sister Karen in Manchester – and six weeks after turning 18 landed her first professional modelling job in Tokyo.
And Tess found further fame in 1990, when she appeared in two Duran Duran music videos for the tracks Serious and Violence of Summer (Love’s Taking Over).
In a rather more racy role, she went totally nude in the video for The Beloved’s track Sweet Harmony three years later in 1993.
She isn’t the only star who keeps her real name on the down-low – X Factor presenter Dermot O’Leary isn’t actually called Dermot.
Though he’s known up and down the country by the moniker, Dermot is actually his middle name – with the full thing being Sean Dermot Fintan O’Leary Jr.
Dermot has both British and Irish citizenship because his parents hail from Ireland – despite him being born in Essex.
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