When Kirsten Dunst was in grade school in New Jersey, her classmates used to tease her mercilessly about her last name, calling her 'Dunce Dunst' or saying 'Duh' all the time when she walked by.

Dunst's mother, seeking to rectify the situation, told her daughter to inform her classmates that 'Dunst' was just the German word for 'fog.'

Did it work? Well, not exactly: "Whenever I came to school or during tense silences in class," Kirsten recalled, "some bully would inevitably bellow out a foghorn noise!"

[This, Dunst felt, "was much worse than being called Dunce Dunst. I wished I'd never told anyone what my name meant." Indeed, when she arrived in Hollywood, Dunst began telling people that Dunst means 'mist' -- rather than 'fog' -- in German. "It's much more romantic sounding that way."]

[Unable to sleep without a blanket given to her by her mother when she was born, Dunst, even as an adult, began taking it everywhere she went.]