This weekend saw the UK release of Burnt, a film about a chef, played by Bradley Cooper, who is so desperate for success that he is driven to spout such nonsense as “I don’t want my restaurant to be a place where you come and eat,” and “I want people to sit at that table and be sick … with longing,” which makes you think he is less a chef and more a sort of elaborate Borat-style spoof.

But Cooper’s unstoppable punchability isn’t even the worst thing about the film. The worst thing about Burnt is the fact that it is called Burnt. It is a dog of a title – both grammatically obscure and, onomatopoeically, the noise you make when you barf your lunch into a bin. And, just to exacerbate things, it is actually the film’s third title. Originally Burnt was called Chef, because it is about a chef, but it was beaten to the punch by Jon Favreau’s 2014 movie. Then it was renamed Adam Jones, which was similarly kiboshed, on the basis that you could give the world’s finest minds a million years and they still wouldn’t be able to come up with a film title less memorable than Adam Jones.

So Burnt it is. Will the last-minute name-change help? It is hard to say – movies change titles all the time, for better or worse. Here are some that worked, and some that really didn’t.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

This movie already had a brilliant name. It was called All You Need is Kill, after the Hiroshi Sakurazaka novel it was adapted from. “But what if the word Kill is too violent for a film about a man who dies repeatedly in his quest to murder an entire army of aliens?”, worried Hollywood executives. So, instead, it was called Edge of Tomorrow: a title that managed to be a) meaningless, b) bland and c) the key lyric of the Saved by the Bell: The College Years theme tune. It was such a bad choice that, for its DVD release, the film was repackaged again as Live Die Repeat.

Frozen (2013)

Since the 1940s, Disney had been trying to make a film of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, but it repeatedly failed because the character of the Snow Queen is such a catastrophic meanie. It was not until someone suggested changing the title to Frozen – mimicking Tangled’s formula of renaming classic fairytales with blunt adjectives – that things fell into place. Great news for Disney, terrible news for anyone who has ever had to spend an entire long-haul flight listening to a six-year-old girl bellow Let it Go.

Hancock (2008)

For years, Tonight He Comes – the story of a porn-addicted superhero and attempted rapist – was considered one of the best unmade scripts in Hollywood. But somewhere along the line, Will Smith came aboard, the violence was scaled back and Tonight He Comes became Hancock, the story of a superhero who acts exactly like Will Smith would if he drank recreationally and had a slightly straggly beard.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a perfect title for a film, informing viewers that they are about to witness a massacre that takes place in Texas with a chainsaw. However, there is a good chance that the film would not have become a classic had it gone with its previous title of Head Cheese. Thank goodness someone had the sense to realise early on that nothing is less scary than an American potted meat product.

Alien (1979)

The late 1970s. Two writers decide to pen a claustrophobic thriller about a murderous alien that runs riot aboard a distant spacecraft. The name of that film? Star Beast. Fortunately, someone realises that Star Beast sounds like the name of the world’s worst high school metal band, and the title is changed to Alien. Things are never the same again.