Watch: Joey Lawrence Reveals His and Brothers Matthew & Andrew’s Real Names
Sterling K. Brown is known by more names than just Randall Pearson.
The This Is Us alum, whose full name is Sterling Kelby Brown, recently shared why he chose to forego his first name and went by his middle one until he was 16 years old.
“My dad’s name is Sterling Brown Jr., my grandfather is Sterling Brown Sr.,” the Emmy winner said during the April 5 episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show. “I wanted my own name and it felt like Sterling was an old man’s name.”
However, after going by Kelby throughout his childhood, the Paradise actor—who shares sons Andrew, 13, and Amaré, 9, with wife Ryan Michelle Bathé—had a change of heart as a teenager as a way to honor his father, who had died from a heart attack.
“Because he passed away when I was 10, by the time I turned 16 and I hadn’t heard his name for five, five-and-a-half years,” he continued. “I was like, ‘I kinda just want to hear that name again.’ So I asked people to call me Sterling.”
And his nickname is not the only way his dad’s death has greatly impacted his life. In fact, Sterling has been open about the memories he has of his dad, both the difficult and heartwarming ones.
“I remember really specific things [about the day he died],” he told Sunday Today in 2019. “Waking up that morning and going into the kitchen, and my mom being on the phone, calling the paramedics and asking me to put clothes on my dad, because he was naked in the bed and his body was stiff.”
Sterling added of his dad being taken away by the paramedics, “He looks at me over the railing and he winks, just winks. They carry him out the door, last time I saw him.”
And though he admitted his time with his father “was short,” he cherishes the memories.
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“I will say this about Sterling Brown, Jr.: He filled me up with so much love,” Sterling shared. “It was everything that I could’ve hoped for for 10 years.”
Read on for more stars who have opened up about their real names.
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The This Is Us alum explained why he went by his middle name Kelby until he was a teenager.
“My dad’s name is Sterling Brown Jr., my grandfather is Sterling Brown Sr.,” he said during an April 2025 appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “I wanted my own name and it felt like Sterling was an old man’s name.”
But years after his dad died from a heart attack, Sterling decided to revert back to his first name as a way to honor his father.
“Because he passed away when I was 10, by the time I turned 16 and I hadn’t heard his name for five, five-and-a-half years,” he continued. “I was like, ‘I kinda just want to hear that name again.’ So I asked people to call me Sterling.”
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The brothers all changed their name from Mignogna to Lawrence, Joey’s middle name, for their stage names. Joey was the first to do so after a talent agent criticized their last name and made the suggestion when he was trying to build his entertainment career.
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Kat Dennings adopted a stage name at age 9, years before she made her official onstage acting debut on a 2000 episode of Sex and the City.
The 2 Broke Girls alum told Kylie Kelce on the March 13, 2025 episode of her podcast Not Gonna Lie With Kylie Kelce that she didn’t think her real name name should “be displayed on a poster.”
The actress drew inspiration for her stage name from Christina Ricci‘s character Kat in the film Casper as well as the surname of Janine Denni, the French wife of late The Black Cauldron author Lloyd Alexander, a writer she said was her mother’s best friend.
For more than three decades, Cher was made to believe that her legal first name was Cherilyn. It wasn’t until the late ’70s, when she obtained her birth certificate in order to change her full name to just Cher, that she discovered that she had been registered as “Cheryl.”
In her 2024 memoir, Cher: The Memoir, Part One, the pop icon recalled her mom Georgia Holt‘s reaction to this discovery.
She said her mother, who gave birth to her at age 19, responded, “Let me look at that!” and then, recalling her postpartum experience, added, “I was only a teenager, and I was in a lot of pain. Give me a break.”
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The outlaw country star adopt Shaboozey as his nickname and later used it as his official alias as a music artist after his Virginia high school misspelled his surname that way.
Congratulations to Post Malone, who incorporated his surname into his stage name. However, the rapper does prefer his close friends to call him by his real name.
During the 2024 MTV VMAs, Taylor Swift referred to him as “Austin” when they won the Best Collaboration award for their duet “Fortnight.”
Though the singer initially released a Christian album under her birth name in 2001, she felt the stage name Katy Perry—inspired by her mom’s maiden name—might meet pop fans more in awe, awe, awe.
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Cardi B took on the name Bacardi after family and friends started calling her sister Hennessy. Later on she shortened the name to something that suited her quite a bit more.
Before she became the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle was briefly known as Rachel.
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Shania Twain shared the origin story of her stage name during an appearance on Apple Music’s Home Now Radio: “In short, I was born, Eilleen Regina Edwards, and then I was adopted and I became Eilleen Regina Twain. Then I became a professional singer and I needed a stage name that sounded a little less like my grandmother’s name, because I’m named after my grandmother, both my grandmothers, Eilleen and Regina. I think, in my mind, I was just not really wanting to be called my grandmother’s name onstage, so I decided to change it to Shania Twain. I met somebody with the name Shania, thought it was beautiful, and Shania Twain was born.”
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The “Good Luck, Babe!” singer’s onstage persona—Chappell Roan—has always been a “drag project,” allowing her to set boundaries and separate her personal life from the industry.
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Oddly enough, Gigi Hadid got her stage name in school when the teacher would confuse her and a girl named Helena. Since her mom called her “gigi” as a term of endearment at home, she told the teacher to just call her Gigi and it simply stuck.
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If you’re looking for an explosive action-star name, how about Vin Diesel instead?
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Miley Cyrus‘ bright smile is what inspired her childhood nickname, Smiley. Eventually the name was shortened to Miley and it stuck.
Apparently the singer looked more like a Bruno than a Peter, so one day his dad started calling him Bruno. Ever since, he has been known as Bruno Mars.
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Before the meat dresses and chart-topping music, Lady Gaga was just an everyday girl from New York.
Jason Sudeikis confirmed on Today that he was named Daniel after his father, but following some confusion, his mom started using his middle name Jason to avoid confusion.
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Emma Stone ended adopting this stage name after finding out that the Screen Actors Guild already had a member registered under her birthname.
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Turns out Reese isn’t even Reese Witherspoon‘s middle name. The actress chose the moniker in honor of her mother, whose maiden name is Reese.
Every artist has an alter ego, and Lana Del Rey just happens to be the persona of choice for the singer.
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In 2014, Frank Ocean legally changed his name because, why not?
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A little known fact about 30 Rock‘s Tina Fey is that she is actually named Elizabeth. The comedian made a not so subtle tribute to her birth name by naming her character Liz Lemon.
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This pioneer of West Coast rap would later go on to be known as Snoop Dogg.
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Turns out the “Royals” singer is really into learning about the aristocracy, hence the reason why she chose the name Lorde, but with a feminine ‘e.’
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Before he started shaking his bonbon for the masses, music superstar Ricky Martin went by this everyday name.
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It’s hard to believe that Iggy Azalea was born Amethyst Kelly!
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Fans were confused when Taylor Swift thanked then-boyfriend Adam in an acceptance speech, which lead people to the discovery that Calvin Harris is simply a stage name. The DJ told Shortlist magazine he chose the name because his first single was more soulful and wanted something a bit more “racially ambiguous.”
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Before she became a household name, this was what erstwhile Friend Jennifer Aniston answered to.
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Alicia Keys didn’t always have such a musical name.
Before he became arguably the biggest movie star in the world, Tom Cruise went by this name.
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