Sanjeev Kumar Real name was Harihar Jethalal Jariwala know story of changing his name

Sanjeev Kumar is one of those brilliant actors whose acting range was unmatched. Even the biggest actors would break into a sweat after seeing his powerful performance on screen.

But do you know that the name by which the actor earned immense fame in Hindi cinema was not his real name. Yes, Sanjeev Kumar’s real name was something else which he had to change to make a special and impressive identity in films.

The story of Sanjeev Kumar changing his name is very interesting. Let us tell you that Sanjeev Kumar’s real name used to be Harihar Jethalal Jariwala.

Sanjeev Kumar was born in a Gujarati Brahmin family on 9 July 1938 and he came to the city of dreams, Mumbai, at a very young age.

Sanjeev Kumar was fond of acting and then he decided to become an actor. But it was not so easy to turn this dream into reality.

Well, Sanjeev Kumar started fulfilling his dream of becoming an actor in Hindi cinema by first changing his name. In fact, during his early days, Jariwala would often say that his name was “not right for an aspiring actor” and would discuss with his friends the names he could adopt.

Then director Kamal Amrohi advised him to change his name to create a strong identity on the silver screen. This has also been mentioned in the book ‘An Actor’s Actor’ written on the actor by Hanif Javeri and lawyer Sumant Batra.

The book published by Penguin Random House states, “He decided that his name should begin with the letter ‘S’, as his mother’s name began with ‘S’ (Shantaben), and end with ‘Kumar’ as most actors’ names ended with ‘Kumar’. After a lot of debate and discussion, the name ‘Sanjay Kumar’ was unanimously approved, and Hari was credited under this name in both ‘Ramat Ramde Ram’ and ‘Aao Pyar Karen’.”

Harihar was now doing his next film Nishaan when he met producer-director Amrohi. He had called the actor for his film Shankar Hussain. When Hari went to meet Amrohi, he was asked to do a screen test with some difficult dialogues in Urdu. Ever hardworking, Hari spoke the dialogues in four different ways. Impressed by Hari’s confidence, Amrohi suggested that he should change his name as it was not an impressive name for an actor.

However, Harihar did not tell Amrohi that he had already changed his name to Sanjay Kumar. During this time, Sanjay Khan’s film Dosti was released which became a super-duper hit. After which Harihar felt that two Sanjays cannot rule the screen at the same time.

Aspi Irani then advised Harihar to change his name once again. However, Hari did not want to as he had already released two films as Sanjay Kumar. However, ‘Aao Pyar Karen’ was focused on Joy Mukherjee, and ‘Ramat Ramde Ram’ was a regional film. Then he decided to take a chance and the name Sanjeev Kumar was born.’

After this, Harihar made his mark in Bollywood under the name Sanjeev Kumar and gave many blockbuster films.