{"id":784053,"date":"2026-07-25T17:05:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/784053\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T17:05:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:05:16","slug":"celebrities-who-changed-their-name-oprah-winfrey-reese-witherspoon-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/784053\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrities Who Changed Their Name: Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, More"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;ve been spelling <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/oprah_winfrey\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Oprah Winfrey<\/a>\u00a0wrong all these years.<\/p>\n<p>But that&#8217;s OK, because so has she.<\/p>\n<p>The multimedia mogul was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/1434265\/oprah-winfrey-reveals-real-name-orpah-to-keke-palmer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noopener noreferrer noopener noreferrer nofollow\">born Orpah Gail Winfrey<\/a>, her first name coming from the Bible&#8217;s Book of Ruth, with Orpah being the titular convert&#8217;s sister-in-law.<\/p>\n<p>But, as Winfrey explained to the blown-away host of\u00a0Baby, This Is Keke Palmer, \u201cI was a kid and nobody knew how to spell it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So, even though her birthday certificate says Orpah, people mispronounced it so often, the future daytime talk show queen just went with Oprah\u2014and quite the surprise awaited as she came of age.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t learn until I was probably 20 or something,&#8221; the 72-year-old admitted, &#8220;that, &#8216;Oh, this isn&#8217;t really my name.'&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/keke_palmer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Keke Palmer<\/a> quipped back, &#8220;Wow, we have so much in common, because I&#8217;m actually &#8216;Eekey.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nope, &#8220;I&#8217;m just bein&#8217; stupid,&#8221; she added with a laugh, but the We Love Boosters\u00a0actress was born Lauren Keyana Palmer.<\/p>\n<p>Which Winfrey knew, of course. But if you were today-years-old when\u00a0you found out\u2014about either of these star&#8217;s given name\u2014well then just add them to the long list of celebrities who go by alternate monikers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You&#8217;ve been spelling Oprah Winfrey\u00a0wrong all these years. But that&#8217;s OK, because so has she. The multimedia mogul&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":["post-784053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}