TOM Cruise might sound like a name invented in Hollywood, but it wasn’t.

“Cruise” is actually the actor’s middle name, and he’s the one who decided to make it his last name when he started his movie career.

That’s just one of several ultra-personal anecdotes the megastar shares in a rare two-hour interview on “Inside the Actors Studio” Sunday night on Bravo (8-10 p.m.).

He was born Thomas Cruise Mapother (pronounced May-pah-ther) IV on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, N.Y. On “Actors Studio,” the normally reticent star opens up about the 10-year estrangement from his father that ended with their reconciliation on his father’s deathbed when Cruise was 22.

He denies, however, that his decision to drop his last name had anything to do with his rocky relationship with his father and namesake.

“I honestly didn’t want the name,” Cruise says, “because I wanted to define who I was, for myself. That’s why I changed it.”