Cher remembered her reaction upon discovering her legal name in her 30s.
In her memoir “Cher: The Memoir, Part One,” the 77-year-old singer revealed that she found out her birth certificate listed her first name as “Cheryl” when she applied to legally change her name to Cher in 1979. Cher was shocked by this revelation.
“I believed Cherilyn was my name until the day years later when I decided to legally change my name to simply Cher,” the “Moonstruck” actress shared in her book, according to People magazine.
Cher was “shocked” to first find out her legal name in her 30s. (STEFANO RELLANDINI/AFP via Getty Images)
Cher’s mother, Georgia Holt, was 19 when she gave birth to the singer in 1946. Cher recounted the difficult labor her mother went through without medication at a small hospital in El Centro, California.
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“She was exhausted by the time I arrived at around 7:30 a.m. on Monday, May 20,” Cher wrote.
After giving birth to Cher, a nurse asked Holt what name she had chosen for her baby.
“My mother had no idea, but the woman insisted so she replied, ‘Well, Lana Turner’s my favorite actress and her little girl’s called Cheryl. My mother’s name is Lynda, so how about Cherilyn?'” Cher wrote.
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The singer’s mother Georgia Holt gave birth to Cher when she was 19. ( Margaret Norton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Since she was exhausted and recovering from the difficult labor, Holt didn’t notice that the nurse erroneously registered her newborn’s name as Cheryl.
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Cher remembered confronting her mother after discovering the error and asking, “Do you even know my real name, Mom?”
“I believed Cherilyn was my name until the day years later when I decided to legally change my name to simply Cher.”
The “Believe” singer wrote that Georgia took the birth certificate from her daughter and shrugged after looking at the document.
“I was only a teenager, and I was in a lot of pain. Give me a break,” Cher recalled her mother telling her.
The Grammy winner changed her name to her famous mononym in 1979. ( Ron Tom/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Cher is the only child of Holt and John Sarkisian, who divorced when the singer was 10 months old. Holt and Sarkisian remarried in 1965 but divorced the following year. In addition to Sarkisian, Holt was married to five other husbands. She kept her last husband’s surname, Holt, until her death at the age of 96 in 2022.
After Holt’s third husband Gilbert LaPiere legally adopted Cher, the singer took his last name. Cher also adopted the surnames of her ex-husbands Sonny Bono and Gregg Allman.
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The Oscar winner decided to drop all four of her surnames, including Sarkisian, LaPiere, Bono, and Allman, when she legally changed her name to “Cher.”
