Back in the mid-1970s, John Francis Bongiovi Jr. was in his teens, and he idolized another New Jersey rocker, Bruce Springsteen, according to Biography. By the age of 16 he’d formed a band (Atlantic City Expressway) and even performed with them a few times. He also performed with other bands, including John Bongiovi and the Wild Ones (note that he used his birth name).
However, by the time he signed with a record company, studio executives had done the same thing they did with Richard Steven Valenzuela (Ritchie Valens) and made him change his name to something more marketable. As Noise Addicts reports, a letter and a syllable were excised, a space was added, and Bon Jovi (the name of the band and its frontman) was born. The other guys in the band seemed to be okay with being in a band that bore the name of its lead singer, and the rest, as they say, is history.
