Ten Incredibly Strange Inspirations for Celebrity Names

Celebs truly are just like us—in the sense that some of them have incredibly unique names! Just like plenty of people around the world, the parents of many celebrities found some very rare and notable inspirations for naming their unborn babies who would go on to be rich and famous. And these are some of their stories!

In this list, we’ll take a look at the tales of ten celebrities who were named after notable things, people, or places. All ten of these stars were unborn, of course, and at the mercy of their parents’ whims and tastes. But their names were memorable from the get-go based on the inspiration these parents had. And now, after having risen to fame, we all know these stars’ tales of how they got their monikers. Get ready for a strange one!

Related: 10 Of The Most Unflattering Nicknames Given To Royals

10 Rachel Zegler

Rachel Zegler may only be in her early 20s, but she’s already made a major impression on Hollywood. The actress won a Golden Globe for her work in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, and in 2023, she starred in Shazam. Maybe it makes sense that she’s spending her life working successfully in front of the camera, though. Because the reason she was named “Rachel” in the first place all came down to her mother being a big fan of television! That’s right: Rachel Zegler is actually named after Rachel Green, the iconic character played by Jennifer Aniston on the long-running television sitcom Friends.

“That is a real fact, and nobody ever believes me,” Zegler told Jimmy Fallon during an appearance on The Tonight Show in November of 2023. “They think there’s no way I’m young enough to be named after Friends, but I am.”^[1]

9 Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift may be the biggest pop star on the planet right now, but she was actually named for an even bigger star who shone brightly long before her birth: James Taylor! Swift’s parents were big fans of James Taylor’s music, and so when they had their daughter in 1989, they decided to name her after the folk-singing sensation.

Years later, in 2015, James Taylor reminisced about how he came to learn that fact. And he was very honored by it! “It’s hugely flattering and was a delightful surprise when she told me that,” James said to the outlet Stereogum that year. “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. 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]

8 Selena Gomez

Late in 2020, pop star Selena Gomez popped up on her Instagram account and confirmed to fans that she had been watching the then-popular Netflix series about the late Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla. The first Selena, as she was, took the American Southwest by storm and crossed cultural boundaries with both American and Mexican fans before she was tragically murdered by the director of her own fan club in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1995. But as it turns out, this second Selena was named in a way to honor the first!

“I wanted to check in and say ‘hi’ and that I have been binge-watching the Selena series on Netflix. It’s so good,” Gomez wrote about the late superstar Quintanilla in her Instagram Story in December of 2020. “She’s such an inspiration. I was named after her, and it’s unbelievable.” It’s pretty amazing to think that a future pop singer would be named after another Latina star, but that’s how it turned out. What are the chances?!^[3]

7 Dax Shepard

Dax Shepard rose to fame on the back of pal Ashton Kutcher when the two did the iconic MTV show Punk’d together in the 2000s. Since then, Dax has taken on a number of film roles in various projects, including a memorable turn in Idiocracy. More recently, his “Armchair Expert” podcast has become one of the more popular audio shows to be streamed, and he interviews all kinds of interesting celebrity guests about all sorts of quirky and fascinating things. But he was destined for fame even before birth—because his parents were already thinking uniquely!

According to Dax’s wife, Kristen Bell, who spoke to People Magazine about her beloved husband a few years back, he was named after the protagonist in author Harold Robbins’ 1966 novel The Adventurers. Kristen went so far as to track down an original copy of that book for one of Dax’s birthdays, too. And then she had family members and friends write messages of love for the star in the book! What a way to honor one’s namesake and recall the inspiration with which his parents picked out his name. Very sweet!^[4]

6 Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey may be a household name by now and one of the most famous women to ever see her star rise on television, but things didn’t start out that way. In fact, her actual name isn’t even Oprah; it’s actually Orpah! (Notice the alternate spelling—it’s easy to miss!) As the story goes, Oprah was named after Orpah, which is a character in the Bible in the 14th verse of the first chapter of Ruth. Basically, the future TV star-to-be’s aunt Ida named her like that. But then, nobody else in the family could pronounce “Orpah” the right way, and the name quickly reverted to what we know today!

“Originally, I was named from the Bible by Aunt Ida who named me from Ruth, the first chapter at the 14th verse: Orpah,” Winfrey explained in 1983 during the audition tape that would end up earning her a turn on her first-ever morning show in Chicago. “But no one knew how to spell in my home, and that’s why it ended up being Oprah.” It’s funny how fate can be changed on a dime like that, isn’t it? We almost had Orpah Winfrey, but instead, Oprah is one of the most recognized names in all of entertainment media!^[5]

5 Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo DiCaprio was still in the womb when his artistically inclined mother decided on what to name him. He’s got an Italian last name, of course, so that was a natural move to give him an Italian-inspired first name, too. But that’s not the exact impetus for calling the child Leonardo. What actually happened is that his mom was at a museum in Italy while she was pregnant with then-unborn Leo. She just so happened to be standing in front of a painting produced by the legendary Leonardo da Vinci when BAM! She felt her unborn son kicking in her belly for the very first time.

DiCaprio’s mom took it as a sign that she ought to name the baby after the iconic painter, and so she did. A few months later, Leonardo DiCaprio was born and entered the world with quite a high-end namesake. Of course, we’d say that the Titanic star did pretty well for himself in carrying on the name from there. But it’s definitely funny and unique to learn that he was named after the painter following such a memorable kicking experience in the hallowed halls of a museum that housed da Vinci’s works!^[6]

4 Ciara

In 2016, the R&B singer Ciara became the face of Revlon cosmetics and fragrances. She was officially named a global ambassador for the company that year, and she was extremely happy about it. But it wasn’t just because she’d inked a big deal with a world-famous brand; it was because she was actually named after a Revlon product by her astute parents when she was still in the womb!

“I’ve been a fan of the iconic Revlon brand my entire life,” football star Russell Wilson’s wife touted in a press release celebrating her move to become Revlon’s global brand ambassador. “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.” Amazing to think about how that came full circle, isn’t it? From being named after a fragrance by her mother to several decades later becoming the celebrity that the world associates with the brand!^[7]

3 Lil Nas X

Lil Nas X completely took the entire world by storm when his song “Old Town Road” alongside Billy Ray Cyrus debuted and shot to viral fame. And while he hasn’t been quite able to repeat that success with subsequent music, he has made headlines for plenty of other things. For one, he came out as gay after the song got big, breaking down barriers in the worlds of both hip-hop and country music. But there are even more interesting stories beyond that, too—like how he’s named after a Mitsubishi!

Lil Nas X’s given name is Montero Lamar Hill. When he was born in 1999 in Georgia, his mother was apparently really impressed with the Mitsubishi Montero. She didn’t have one at the time, but she badly wanted the SUV for herself. So she willed it into existence by deciding to name her son after the car model! “It’s slightly embarrassing, but [I’m] not embarrassed,” Lil Nas X explained on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon back in 2021. “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.”^[8]

2 Winona Ryder

Before Winona Ryder was born, her father and her pregnant mother were passing through rural Minnesota. At one point, they stopped in the tiny town of Winona—which today has a population of just 25,000 people and was even smaller back then. As they were there, Ryder’s mom bent down to pick up a pamphlet about the town that was inside a laundromat where they had been washing some clothes. All of a sudden, her water broke, and she went into labor! They rushed to the hospital, and Winona was born a happy and healthy girl. But they were so amazed at the sudden birth in the tiny town that they decided to honor the village in the only way they knew how: by naming their daughter after it!

“[My mom] bent over to pick up this pamphlet with a girl on the cover, which said The Legend of Winona, and she went into labor,” Winona told Vogue Magazine years later. “I was supposed to be named Laura!” Sure, while Laura Ryder may not have a bad ring to it, the name Winona is unique and beautiful. Seems to us like her parents inadvertently picked a winner with that one!^[9]

1 Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda was named after one of the most famous women to ever live: Jane Seymour, one of the wives of the long-dead King Henry VIII. In fact, Fonda is even distantly related to Jane Seymour, so the name makes some sense in that regard. Fonda revealed as much to late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel when she went on his show in 2015. Her full name is actually Jane Seymour Fonda, and the “Seymour” in her middle name is also a nod to the famous ancient wife who was murdered by her rampaging royal husband!

“She was one of the wives of Henry VIII, and we were related to her, which is how come the ‘Seymour’ appears,” Fonda explained to Kimmel during their interview. When she was a kid, it even went so far that everybody in her life called her “Lady Jane” as opposed to only knowing her by her first name. Now, that’s truly the royal treatment! But as it turned out, Jane flipped that script to become something of a modern-day royal herself—at least as far as Hollywood is concerned!^[10]