Early on in the chat, host Keke was visibly stunned as Oprah discussed the origins of her real name — which is actually Orpah.
Explaining why to Keke, Oprah began by sharing the meaning behind her birth name. “It was Orpah from the Bible,” she said. “Ruth, first chapter, fourteenth verse. It's that whole Ruth and Naomi story. And you know, Ruth said, ‘Wherever thy goest, I will go.’ And then Orpah said, ‘I'm going back. I'm sorry. I can't. Too long. The road's too long.’"
When Keke then asked what made her decide to go by Oprah, the talk show icon replied, “It’s not what made me. I was a kid, and nobody knew how to spell it.”
“So, it turned out on my birth certificate, it's Or-pah. And then people started calling me Op-rah. And so it's just the difference between the P being before the R or after the R. So once they started with Oprah, that's it,” she continued.
What’s more, Oprah noted that she spent years completely unaware that she was technically going by the wrong name.
“I didn’t learn until I was probably 20 or something that this isn’t really my name,” she admitted before clarifying that her birth certificate still has her official name listed as Orpah.
Keke — who also doesn’t go by her birth name, which is Lauren Keyana — went on to tell Oprah, “We have so much in common.”
Reacting to Oprah’s remarks about her real name, which she has discussed publicly before, one TikTok user said, “This is why correcting people about your name is a must.”
“Don't blame her. People mispronounce my name wrong all the time so I dont let people use it anymore outside of legal settings,” another person wrote.
Can you think of more celebrities who don’t go by their real birth names? Let us know in the comments, and check out the full podcast episode right here.
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