Tom and Jerry – Final name: Simon and Garfunkel
Paul Simon and Arthur Garfunkel were only 15 years old when they started shopping their songs around. However, let’s just say that the duo didn’t have the most marketable names in the world. So Paul became John Landis (taking the last name of his crush, Sue Landis), and Arthur became Tom Graph (because, true story, he loved to graph the progress of his hit songs on graph paper).
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Apparently, not fearing a lawsuit from Hanna-Barbera, the duo called themselves Tom and Jerry, and they actually had a minor hit. Hey Schoolgirl had some radio play, and, according to Rolling Stone Magazine, they even played it on American Bandstand. After focusing on college (and failing to produce another hit), they recovered as a folk act and decided to go with their real names.