14 Celebs With Unique Stories For Whom Or What They're Named After, Including A Perfume And A Car

Oprah was named after a character from the Bible, though the spelling is different.

Hot Topic

🔥 Full coverage and conversation on Taylor Swift

1. Rachel Zegler was named after Rachel from Friends.

Kevin Winter / WireImage / Getty Images, Andrew Eccles /© NBC / Courtesy Everett Collection

"That is a real fact, and nobody ever believes me," Rachel said while appearing on The Tonight Show in November of last year. "Because they think there's no way I'm young enough to be named after Friends, but I am. My mom...they were going to name me Catherine, but my older sister's Jaqueline. And they thought that might be too confusing for babies to figure out. My mom loved the way it sounded on Friends for Jennifer Aniston, and then that was my name."

2. Taylor Swift was named after James Taylor.

John Salangsang / Golden Globes 2024 via Getty Images, Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images for Love Rocks NYC/God's Love We Deliver

"It’s hugely flattering and was a delightful surprise when she told me that," James Taylor told Stereogum in 2015. "We did a benefit together, I think it was focused on teenage pregnancy, 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."

3. Selena Gomez was named after Selena Quintanilla.

Jesse Grant / Getty Images for AFI, Vinnie Zuffante / Getty Images

"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 reportedly said in an Instagram story in 2020, mentioning the Netflix show Selena: The Series. "She's such an inspiration. I was named after her and it's unbelievable."

Hot Topic

Think you’re Blondie’s biggest fan? Put your ~reputation~ to the test.

See our Taylor Swift Discussions

4. Zooey Deschanel was reportedly named after one of the protagonists in J.D. Salinger's 1961 book Franny and Zooey.

Kevin Winter / Getty Images

The New York Times reported this in a 2002 profile on the actor.

5. January Jones was reportedly named after the female protagonist in Jacqueline Susann's 1973 novel Once Is Not Enough: January Wayne.

Stefanie Keenan / Getty Images for NET-A-PORTER

W Magazine reported this in a 2016 feature on the actor.

6. Dax Shepard was reportedly named after the protagonist in Harold Robbins's 1966 novel The Adventurers.

Charley Gallay / Getty Images for Feld Entertainment

People reported this in a 2019 article on the actor.

7. Oprah was named after Orpah, a character in the Bible.

Amy Sussman / Getty Images

"Originally, I was named from the Bible by Aunt Ida who named me from Ruth, the first chapter at the 14th verse: Orpah. But no one knew how to spell in my home, and that's why it ended up being Oprah," she said in her 1980s audition tape for a Chicago morning show that would become The Oprah Winfrey Show.

8. Leonardo DiCaprio was reportedly named after Leonardo da Vinci.

Jesse Grant / Getty Images for AFI, Stock Montage / Getty Images

According to a Deadline article from 2018, when Leonardo's mother was pregnant, she felt him kick in the womb for the first time while looking at a da Vinci painting.

9. Aubrey Plaza was named after the band Bread's 1977 song "Aubrey."

Jamie Mccarthy / Getty Images

“It was mysterious and haunting — what was so special about this girl, one could only imagine and never really know,” Aubrey's mother Bernadette Plaza told Delaware Today in 2012 about Bread's song. “It is very fitting for Aubrey. It’s hard to put into words what makes her so special, but I always knew she would be.”

10. Ciara was named after a Revlon perfume.

Leon Bennett / Getty Images

“I’ve been a fan of the iconic Revlon brand my entire life,” Ciara said in a 2016 press release for Revlon after being named a global brand ambassador for the company. “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.”

11. Lil Nas X, whose first name is Montero, was named after the Mitsubishi Montero SUV.

Valerie Macon / AFP via Getty Images

"It's slightly embarrassing, but [I'm] not embarrassed. So my mom wanted the car, the Montero, and she never got one," Lil Nas X said on The Tonight Show in 2021. "It's a Mitsubishi, so ya, I'm named after a car."

12. Cole Sprouse was named after Nat King Cole.

Pascal Le Segretain / Getty Images, Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

"My mom wanted to create a narrative of artistry, so Nat King Cole worked for her. Just a guy named Cole worked for my dad," Cole told ABC News in 2017.

13. Winona Ryder was named after Winona, Minnesota.

Cindy Ord / Getty Images

That's the city where her father and pregnant mother were passing through in the 1970s. “She 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 of her mother, who was at a laundromat in the city with Winona's father. “I was supposed to be named Laura!”

14. Finally, Jane Fonda was named after Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife.

Michael Kovac / Getty Images for LACMA, Imagno / Getty Images

"She was one of the wives of Henry VIII, and we were related to her, which is how come the 'Seymour' appears," Jane Fonda noted on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2014 of her full birth name: Lady Jayne Seymour Fonda.

Hot Topic

🔥 Full coverage and conversation on Taylor Swift