(photographer unknown)
“Miller’s last name was taken from her step-father, Oscar Caro Miller, while her first name was a combination/adaptation of her birth name, Mary, and her mother’s middle name, Lynn. Initially calling herself Marilynn, she would drop one of the n’s, at the urging of Florenz Ziegfeld.
Census records reveal perhaps a half a dozen “Marilyns” in the United States in 1900; by the 1930s, following Miller’s stardom, it was the 16th most common first name among American females.
In the late 1940s, Norma Jeane Baker (nee Mortenson) changed her name to Marilyn Monroe, at the urging of Ben Lyon, a one-time actor turned casting director at 20th Century Fox, who said she reminded him of Marilyn Miller.”