Yesterday, I briefly mentioned that the TV Hulk’s alter-ego went by the name David while the comic book Hulk went by Bruce. Several readers inquired with me why I thought that was. I gave two answers. One, comic books traditionally favor alliterative names — Bruce Banner, Peter Parker, Dr. Doom, Reed Richards, Clark Kent, etc. And, two, in the 1970s and 1980s “Bruce” became widely seen as a gay name. Stand-up comics, shlocky movies etc would refer to leathered-up gay dudes as “Bruce.” I’m not sure why this was the case, but I am reminded of Homer Simpson’s conversation with John Waters:

Homer: They ruined all our best names like Bruce and Lance and Julian. Those were the toughest names we had! Now they’re just…
John: Queer?
Homer: Yeah, and that’s another thing! I resent you people using that
word. That’s our word for making fun of you! We need it!

Anyway, in the vast amount of time I wasted pondering the issue I always thought these were the reasons why they changed Doc Banner’s name. It turns out I was right, according to a reader:

Checked the Book of Armaments (Recent Marvel Encyclopedia Vol. 3 – The Incredible Hulk). Your guess as to why they axed Bruce was dead on. It wasn’t “manly” to be called Bruce back in the late 70s (Yet, Bruce Jenner still is a hero?) and the alliterative name.
The producer who did this all was Kenneth Johnson (he also wanted to change the color of the Hulk’s skin to red – Stan Lee only let him go so far thankfully), who would later go on to do “V.” No one knows why they picked David, but Bill Bixby’s character was Dr. David Bruce Banner. Ironically, and this was Peter David’s doing, the father of Bruce Banner in the comics is David Banner. There he made the child abuse Banner suffered at the hands of his father, the source of the rage that fuels the Hulk.