A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : THE NAME GAME : ‘We’ll Use Natty Bumppo For the Fashion Designer/Hit Man Character’

What’s in a name?

We always thought Natty Bumppo, a.k.a. Hawkeye, the central character in James Fenimore Cooper’s “The Last of the Mohicans,” was etched in the minds of readers of American fiction. Like Huck Finn or Jay Gatsby.

But then there’s the Hollywood version of literary works.

In the upcoming new movie “The Last of the Mohicans,” Natty Bumppo has been bumped off. He’s now known as Nathaniel Poe.

Daniel Day-Lewis has the title role playing the adopted son of the Mohican Chingachgook and lover and savior to Cora Munro (Madeleine Stowe) in the 20th Century Fox film, which opens Sept. 25.

Liberties are often taken with classic stories on their way to the big screen, but rarely have the names been changed. Credit this to director Michael Mann, who with screenwriter Christopher Crowe adapted the Philip Dunne screenplay from an earlier 1936 film version.

Maybe to contemporary ears, Natty Bumppo sounded too goofy as the name of a adventurous frontier hero.

One theory suggests that Nathaniel Poe is a cross between Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, two of Cooper’s peers. Another is that Poe is short for Bumppo.

Fox had no comment.