Many a celebrity opts not to go by their birth name. Stage names are nothing new, and many country stars have adopted one over the years.
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Whether out of sentimentality, happenstance, or a thought-out move, deciding on a stage name is a big—and sometimes life-long—decision for a star.
Keep reading to discover four country musicians who got famous with a name that was not their own.
Carly Pearce
Kicking off our list of country singers who adopted a stage name is Carly Pearce, whose real name is Carly Cristyne Slusser. During an appearance on Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast, Pearce revealed how she decided on her stage name.
“My legal last name is Carly Slusser. Horrible last name for a country singer,” Pearce joked. “… My middle name is Cristyne, so for a long time I was [known as] Carly Cristyne, because that felt right.”
Eventually, though, Pearce decided to change up her name once more.
“My mom’s maiden name is Pearce and [her parents] were super influential in my life,” she said. “They were the ones that kind of shaped my love of country music… When they figured out that I loved country music, they kind of taught me what the Opry was. My grandpa would buy me these CD decades of all the different eras of country music. He just really wanted me to understand who came before me.”
Both of Pearce’s maternal grandparents died when she was a teen, and the singer knew she “wanted to honor them in some way.”
“It feels so important. Now, when I go back to the area where we all lived and where I feel like my whole love of country music started, there are signs that say, ‘Home of Carly Pearce.’ It’s like their name is carrying on into country music history,” she said. “It’s just a really special thing for me that continues to keep them alive for me.”
Jelly Roll
Born Jason Bradley DeFord, fans better know the country star as Jelly Roll. The singer revealed on The Bobby Bones Show that his moniker was given to him by his mom when he “was a little chubby kid.”
“Been fat my whole life,” he said. “I spent the next 30 years trying to grow into the name,” he joked. “… I obviously look the part… It just stuck.”
The name held on through high school when a classmate decided to dub the singer Jelly Roll, without knowing his past connection to the name.
“Once the high school starts calling you something,” he said, “that’s the kit and caboodle.”
Kid Rock
Robert James Ritchie is Kid Rock‘s given name. The singer adopted his known moniker as a teenager. At the time, he was DJing basement parties.
“No one really knew my name, especially the kids in the hood,” Kid Rock told Planet Rock Profiles. “I’d come riding through or walk around, and people only knew me as the little white kid that could rock the turntable.”
Now, he’s not a fan of the name.
“It’s the worst name in the world,” he told Esquire.” The only person that had a dumber name than me was the Fresh Prince. Hey, it sounded like a cool rap name when I was sixteen. But it stuck, and now it’s me. I’ll be an eighty-year-old man—’Call me the Kid.’”
Shania Twain
Closing out our list of country stars who go by a stage name is the Queen of Country Pop herself, Shania Twain. But before she became country royalty, she wasn’t born with that name. The country singer was initially named Eilleen Regina Edwards.
“A lot of celebrities are born with a different name than they end up with as a stage name, and I’m one of those people,” Twain said during her Home Now Radio show on Apple Music Hits.
Twain’s birth name was courtesy of her two grandmothers, Eilleen and Regina. The name switcheroo started after the singer was adopted, which made her Eilleen Regina Twain.
Then, when she became a singer, Twain came to believe that she “needed a stage name that sounded a little less like my grandmother’s name.”
“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,” she said. “I met somebody with the name Shania, thought it was beautiful, and Shania Twain was born.”
Photo by Catherine Powell/Getty Images
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