19 February,2015 05:51 PM IST | | IANS
Actor Benedict Cumberbatch says he used to hate his surname and started using his middle name Carlton as his last name
Why did Benedict Cumberbatch hate his surname?
Los Angeles: Actor Benedict Cumberbatch says he used to hate his surname and started using his middle name Carlton as his last name.
Speaking at a promotional event for his new movie 'The Imitation Game', the 38-year-old said he thought his family surname 'Cumberbatch' sounded like a 'f''t in a bath'.
Cumberbatch didn't think his surname could ever catch on if he became famous, so he used Carlton - which is also his grandfather's moniker - until his agent convinced him otherwise.
"I started off as Benedict Carlton, which is my middle name, my grandfather's name," The Sun newspaper quoted him as saying.
"Cumberbatch sounds like a fart in a bath ... It is even funnier in an English accent. But an agent who was wiser than me told me it was a good name.
"People have had fun with it and they continue to," he added.
