“They had already been calling me Blake for months because they were positive I was going to be a boy.”
In Hollywood, many celebs opt to ditch the name on their birth certificate and switch things up with a stage name. But not all stars want to completely change their identity. For those who choose to keep their given name, it’s often because it has special meaning or a family connection. And sometimes, they just lucked out with a really cool moniker! Many stars have dished on the way they ended up with their name and there’s often a pretty interesting backstory!
Find out how these celebs got their names…
1. Taylor Swift
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Taylor Swift was named after the musician James Taylor. She got the chance to tell James herself during a benefit concert in 2015, explaining that her parents had been huge fans of the musician. He said he was incredibly flattered and thought it was a great connection.
“It’s hugely flattering and was a delightful surprise when she told me that. We did a benefit together…before Taylor really took off. But she was playing guitar and singing her songs and I knew how remarkable she was,” James told Stereogum. “She told me that her mom and dad had been really, deeply into my music and I got a real kick out of the fact that she’d been named after me. Obviously it wasn’t her choice, it was her mom and dad, but nonetheless a great connection I think.”
2. Rachel Zegler
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Rachel Zegler got her name from Jennifer Aniston’s character on Friends. While many people don’t believe she’s young enough to be named after the sitcom, she was actually born in 2001, right in the middle of the show’s massively successful run.
“That is a real fact, and nobody ever believes me. Because they think there’s no way I’m young enough to be named after Friends, but I am,” Rachel shared on The Tonight Show. “They were going to name me Catherine, but my older sister’s Jaqueline. And they thought that might be too confusing for babies to figure out. My mom loved the way it sounded on Friends for Jennifer Aniston, and then that was my name.”
3. Ciara
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Ciara was actually named after a Revlon perfume, which has become a crazy coincidence considering she’s now an ambassador for the brand. She says that before she was born, her father gifted her mom with the Revlon Ciara fragrance and the name stuck.
“I’ve been a fan of the iconic Revlon brand my entire life,” Ciara said in a 2016 press release. “In fact, my name comes from the Revlon Ciara fragrance. It was a gift given to my mother from my father, and she fell in love with the scent and the name. It’s incredible to think that after all those years I would be joining the Revlon family as the newest Global Brand Ambassador.”
4. Aubrey Plaza
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Aubrey Plaza’s mother Bernadette says when it came time to name her daughter, she was inspired by the band Bread’s 1977 song “Aubrey.” Looking back, Bernadette explained that she always knew Aubrey would be special, just like the girl in the song.
“It was mysterious and haunting — what was so special about this girl, one could only imagine and never really know. It is very fitting for Aubrey. It’s hard to put into words what makes her so special, but I always knew she would be,” Bernadette told Delaware Today.
5. Blake Lively
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While many people believe that Blake Lively’s name is a stage name, she says that’s not the case and she was actually named after her grandmother’s brother. She explained that her family thought she was going to be a boy so they called her Blake before she was even born — and the name ended up sticking when it turned out she was a girl.
“My grandma’s brother’s name was Blake, and my sister wrote it down when she was reading a family tree. And they said, ‘If it’s a boy, we’ll name him Blake, and if it’s a girl, we’ll name her Blakely.’ And everybody thought I was going to be a boy, and then I came out and I was a girl. And they had already been calling me Blake for months because they were positive I was going to be a boy. And they had been calling me Blake for so long, they just [kept it],” she told RadioFree.com.
6. Winona Ryder
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Winona Ryder says she was supposed to be named Laura but that all changed right before she was born. Her parents happened to be passing through Winona, Minnesota and while they were in a laundromat, her mother picked up a Winona pamphlet — and then went into labor!
“She bent over to pick up this pamphlet with a girl on the cover, which said The Legend of Winona, and she went into labor. I was supposed to be named Laura!” Winona explained to Vogue.
7. Lil Nas X
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Lil Nas X, whose real name is Montero, admits that he was actually named after a car. He explained that his mom wanted a Mitsubishi Montero SUV but never got it — so she used the name for her son instead.
“It’s slightly embarrassing, but [I’m] not embarrassed. So my mom wanted the car, the Montero, and she never got one. It’s a Mitsubishi, so ya, I’m named after a car,” he shared on The Tonight Show.
8. Jane Fonda
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Jane Fonda wasn’t actually named Jane when she was born. Instead, her mother named her Lady Jayne Seymour Fonda after one of the wives of Henry VIII, to whom she was actually related. Unfortunately, the original Lady Jayne was beheaded!
“She was one of the wives of Henry VIII…A Lady with a Jayne with a ‘y,’ and I’m named after someone who got their head cut off,” Jane shared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, adding she dropped the ‘y’ in her name in the fourth grade.
9. Oprah
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When Oprah was born, her aunt was the one to name her, choosing a biblical name from the Book of Ruth. On her birth certificate, she was given the name Orpah but many of her family members had trouble with spelling — and they often ended up writing Oprah instead.
“My Aunt Ida had chosen the name, but nobody really knew how to spell it, so it went down as ‘Orpah’ on my birth certificate, but people didn’t know how to pronounce it, so they put the ‘p’ before the ‘r’ in every place else other than the birth certificate,” she shared on American Academy of Achievement’s What It Takes podcast. “On the birth certificate it is Orpah, but then it got translated to Oprah, so here we are.”
10. Dax Shepard
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Dax Shepard got his first name from the lead character Dax Xenos in The Adventurers by Harold Robbins. The book continues to hold special meaning for the actor and in 2019, his wife Kristen Bell purchased an original copy of the novel and had loved ones write messages inside.
“There was a best-selling book in the late ’60s and ’70s called The Adventurers by Harold Robbins. The lead character’s name was Dax. Anyone that’s roughly my age that’s named Dax is named from that book. I’ve met probably five other [men named] Dax,” he told Elle.
11. Selena Gomez
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Selena Gomez was named after the late Selena Quintanilla — but her name was almost something entirely different. Selena explained that her mom wanted to call her Priscilla but her dad truly believed she should be named Selena.
“I’m actually named after Selena Quintanilla,” she shared on an episode of Selena + Chef. “It gives me goosebumps sometimes because I was obsessed with Selena. I knew everything about her. I was just such a fan. My real name was going to be Priscilla, and my dad said, ‘No. I want her name to be Selena.’”
12. Cole Sprouse
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Cole Sprouse’s name was inspired by famed jazz singer and pianist Nat King Cole. While his mom wanted to give him an artistic moniker, he admits his dad just liked the name. Meanwhile, his twin brother Dylan was named after the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.
“My mom wanted to create a narrative of artistry, so Nat King Cole worked for her. Just a guy named Cole worked for my dad,” Cole joked during an appearance on Popcorn With Peter Travers in 2017.
13. Halle Berry
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Halle Berry’s name was derived from the department store Halle Brothers. She says her mom fell in love with the name but it wasn’t until Halle became an actress that she realized so many people couldn’t pronounce it.
“My mother was shopping in Halle Brothers in Cleveland. She saw the bags and thought, ‘That’s what I’m going to name my child.’ I thought it was the coolest name until I got into this business. No one ever says it right, it’s Halle, like Sally,” she told the New York Daily News back in 1995.
14. Keira Knightley
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Keira Knightley ended up with her name because of a spelling error. The actress says she was supposed to be named after an ice skater named Kiera but when her mom wrote her name down for her birth certificate, she got the spelling wrong.
“I was meant to be named ‘Kiera,’ after a Russian ice skater who was on the TV one day. My dad fancied her and nicked her name for me. But it was my mum who went to register my birth, and she accidentally spelled ‘ei’ instead of ‘ie’ because my mum’s crap at spelling,” Keira told Elle.
She continued, “Apparently, when she came back he said: ‘WHAT THE F—? You’ve spelt her name wrong!’ What were they going to do, though? Once it’s on the piece of paper, it’s on the piece of paper. And that’s me. A spelling error.”
