My two favorites:
When Garry Marshall was first assembling the show that eventually became Happy Days, he envisioned the local hoodlum as a tall Italian guy named Marsciarelli whose nickname would be ‘Mash.’
Norman Lear purchased the American rights to the hit British sitcom Till Death Do Us Part in 1968 and wrote a pilot script called And Justice for All. The lead character’s name was Archie Justice.