7 Presidents’ Names That Just Sound A Little Bit Off

Grover Cleveland's real first name was Stephen?!

1. Hiram Grant

National Archives / Getty Images

That dude sure looks a lot like President Ulysses S. Grant, so you might be thinking it's his brother or twin. Wrong! Grant's birth name was actually Hiram Ulysses Grant, a name he hated because the initials were HUG. Man, this guy sucked. Anyway, he went by Ulysses for most of his childhood, and a congressman accidentally added the middle initial S when he was nominated to attend West Point, so for the rest of his life he went by a made-up name with a middle initial that stood for nothing.

2. Stephen Cleveland

National Archives / Getty Images

There's no recorded reason why ol' Steve Cleveland (Steveland?) decided to go by his middle name Grover, except that maybe people called him Steve Cleve or that Stephen Cleveland sounds weird when you say it three times fast. Actually, it's probably definitely one of those reasons.

3. Thomas Wilson

Hulton Archive / Getty Images

Thomas is a pretty presidential name and all, but it wasn't good enough for Woodrow Wilson, apparently. He went by Tommy Wilson as a child, but by the time he began a teaching career, he started going by his middle name, Woodrow. Maybe he did this because alliterative names are catchier? Or maybe he did this because he could see into the future and knew that a guy named Thomas Wilson would tarnish his legacy by playing the villain in Back to the Future. My bet's on the latter.

4. John Coolidge Jr.

Getty Archive

If Calvin Coolidge had gone by his real name, he could've been called Cool J, so the fact that he went by his middle name instead is a true historical disappointment.

5. David Eisenhower

Keystone / Getty Images

Dwight Eisenhower was only known as David for, like, a month at most, but history books would look a lot different if his mother hadn't changed her mind on a whim and named him Dwight instead.

6. Leslie King Jr.

Mpi / Getty Images

Believe it or not, this was Gerald Ford's legal name until he was 22! He was named after his father, Leslie King Sr., but his mother left him when Ford was just two weeks old and married a man named Gerald R. Ford four years later. Ford's mother and stepfather started calling him Gerald R. Ford Jr. soon after, and the rest is history — although it would've been kind of cool to have a President King.

7. William Blythe III

Joyce Naltchayan / AFP / Getty Images

Yup, Bill Clinton had a different name until he was in high school. Clinton's father William Blythe Jr. died in a car accident three months before he was born, but his name lived on in his son until the future president formally adopted his stepfather Roger Clinton's last name when he was 15. Bill Blythe sure has a good ring to it, but it's not quite as presidential.