[Julie in the rv mirror]

That's pretty much the "official" story as I know it, including that he didn't really like the name. He'd joke about it, though, for instance in this intro to "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" from 1978:

I got to tell you this story. It was about, it was about 1970 and me and Steve were workin' in this bar in Asbury Park called "The Student Prince" and we were like, we were making no dough, you know, doing nothing, just sitting around, waiting to be discovered or something.... but nobody can discover you in Asbury Park, you know! Gotta get on the Turnpike, at least! Anyway, - bring it down a bit - anyway, we were sitting there one night; matter of fact, it was right around this time of the year, wasn't it, Steve? You know, it was a night - I think - I think it was just like tonight, except it was about 15 degrees outside: it's cold...
It's 3 o'clock in the morning and we're sitting there at this table, everybody's gone home, rest of the band's all gone home, and we're saying "Man, what we gonna do? Here it is - we already did that! - it's like: here it is, this is Christmas time!" I say:"I ain't no money to buy no presents. You ain't got no money to buy no presents, how you gonna buy me a present?" So we made a deal: I wouldn't buy him nothing if he didn't buy me nothing. We were feeling really down, you know, we were going "some Christmas". Do you ever hear people say that? "some Christmas". Right! So we start to walk home down along the boardwalk. Now it's snowin' like crazy out, right? He's carrying the guitars, and somehow I got stuck carrying the amps. I don't now how, I'm supposed to be the Boss, I got stuck carryin' the amps. So, anyway, we were walking down the boardwalk, I got the amps... shit, goddamn... he's got the guitars. And we're goin'on , we're goin'... "Man, I've had it with this Santa Claus stuff, that's a bunch of junk. I don't believe any of that stuff, you know. What are we gonna do? Gonna go home and watch the late show, it's Christmas Eve, and get into bed by myself, pull the covers up, everybody else is havin' a good, I didn't even get a Christmas tree, did you get one?" So anyway, we were feelin' real down about it, you know, then, all of a sudden, it was funny, we seen this light, shootin' around the moon shiftin' into forth scootin' down towards the boardwalk, and all of a sudden, there he was! Steve, look!

Of course, many of his stage stories were just that, but I recently saw an old picture of him lugging an amp (can't find it now), so he wasn't making that part up.