I learned this fun Lugosi trivia from Famous Monsters of Filmland issue #9, published in November 1960.
Bela Lugosi related to a friend once that when he was a boy in Hungary, he heard many “weird folktales” from the peasants on his father’s estate in Lugos. Lugosi told his friend that it was while sitting around nighttime campfires in Lugos that he first learned of frightful things like wolves that could take the shape of men and bats that were transformations of undead beings – like Dracula.
Lugosi’s Hungarian birth name was Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó. He later took the stage name “Lugosi” after the name of his hometown. Today, Lugos is part of Romania and is spelled Lugoj. It is believed that the origin of the town’s name is derived from the Slavic prefix “lug-” or “luh-“, which refers to a swamp forest.
