Cher released her autobiography, Cher: The Memoir, Part One, in late November, and it’s been a New York Times bestseller ever since. She calls it a memoir, but I think historians for years to come will gratefully appreciate the book as a valuable record of the second half of the 20th century. How many people can claim that Francis Ford Coppola convinced them to make a career pivot to acting, or that they happened upon an orgy hosted by Salvador Dalí, or that they asked the great Bob Mackie to design an outfit so vulgar that he begged not to be given credit? Seriously, Cher has so many anecdotes of important people and events. She was on Jimmy Kimmel this week to promote the book, and Jimmy showed a picture of her with the late President Carter and asked if she knew him well. Her response was, “I had dinner with him the first night he was in the White House.” Of course. Also revealed during their conversation was that the name on Cher’s driver’s license simply reads “Cher,” no last name. I would expect no less.
The first question Kimmel, 57, asked Cher, 78, was about the last time she drove a car. Cher admitted it had been a little while, but alluded to having bought a car recently. Kimmel then asked Cher if she had a driver’s license and if her last name was on it.
“I don’t have a last name,” the Moonstruck actress said, confirming that it just says “Cher” on her license. “I had to go to court, they give you a special dispensation or whatever you call it. You have to prove that someone could know you, like the populace could know you by that name. It’s not easy.”
Kimmel joked that if Cher simply showed up, she would be set. He also asked Cher if she had ever been to jury duty, and the “Believe” singer said that “they won’t take me.”
After Kimmel asked if it was because she was “too famous,” Cher said she was “too distracting.” She also mentioned going to a court in session to prepare for a role as a lawyer, but when she showed up, “The judge kicked me out after 10 minutes,” she added, because he was worried she would disrupt the trial.
Though Cher doesn’t mention her driver’s license in her memoir, she does recall learning what her name on her birth certificate said.
“I believed Cherilyn was my name until the day years later when I decided to legally change my name to simply Cher,” she wrote.
However, Cher was shocked to find out that her birth certificate read “Cheryl.” Cher’s mom, Georgia Holt, had been in labor for a long time and there was a mix-up in Holt telling the nurse the name she had in mind for her daughter.
When Cher confronted her mom, she “simply shrugged,” Cher wrote. “I was only a teenager, and I was in a lot of pain. Give me a break,” Holt said, per the memoir.
Only a few people can pull off single-name recognition, and Cher is most definitely one of them. Naturally the next person who comes to mind is Beyonce. Madonna and Prince (may he rest in purple rain), too. Zendaya is young, but I think she still belongs in that club. And though it’s a more common name, I think Adele could make the case as well. But for any prospective parents out there looking to launch their kids into mononymous stardom, I think it’s clear that gifting them with a unique first name would get them off to the best start.
As for parents not remembering the given name on their child’s birth certificate, a younger version of myself would have thought it unimaginable to forget such a significant bit of info. But I haven’t given birth myself, and I am older and wiser now, so I leave room/compassion for the intricate web of emotions, hormones, and sleep-deprivation that occurs post-birth. Especially since this isn’t even the first instance I’ve heard of a decades-long name mix-up happening — back in 2014 Maggie Gyllenhaal learned that her legal name was Margalit! Wait a sec, maybe I need to check my own birth certificate…
photos credit: PGP/Backgrid, PA Images/INSTARimages, Getty
Well I was lucky that I had older sisters and a brother who filled out my birth certificate. My mother was from Germany and didn’t write English very well so she had my oldest sister fill it out. I was a late in life baby so that sister is sixteen years older. My siblings wanted me to have a “normal “ name. My mother wanted to name me Heidi. They didn’t like their names they were given which were Dolores, Carmen and Norman. So when it was time to fill out the birth certificate they went with Susan. What my sister wrote in my baby book for nick names was Susan Marie the mean little kid and that’s because I pooped on my mother’s pillow in the hospital lol. I find it fascinating what people find out about their birth certificates and names.
in the hospital my mom didnt want to go with the name she picked (Sharon) because “it’s for blondes” and I wasnt blonde. the nurse said well all the other girls born today were named Lisa so my mom said sure, let’s do that.
I still can’t get by the fact that she didnt have a plan b.
My parents accidentally put my nickname on my birth certificate instead of my official name because they had a fight on who I was gonna be named after. My dad wanted his sister but my mom said if he wasn’t gonna do his mother then she would do her mother But instead of giving me the official name of his mother he wrote down her weird and unusual nickname cuz that’s how he knew her. It’s an ethnic name so most people just think I have an exotic name instead of the ethnic equivalent of Billy bobby. When I went to my grandmas village I had multiple people confused about my name. It does mean I’m probably the only person with my name. And I’ve never been called by my proper name outside of grandma and maybe my first few days of life. When my grandma calls me by that name I look around confused at who she’s calling for. I didn’t know any of this until my teens and when I confronted my mom she just shrugged and said blame your dad. You would think your father would know his own mother’s name. He didn’t even give me a middle name. Plus he gave me a symbol. Basically my dad should not have been trusted with my birth certificate. My brother who was named by my mom has a far more common and traditional name.
My sister in law goes by her middle name because someone (a nurse? A grandparent? I can’t remember) thought her name was weird and swapped her first and middle names on the paperwork. I would hope nonsense like this has been mostly fixed over the years with greater security and attention to detail in hospitals.
I enjoyed listening to Cher’s memoir. I was floored that her grandmother got pregnant at the age of 12! Cher has an interesting, complicated life. So many famous men (and women) she has met. And the men in those decades had questionable morality, but I think that’s the generally attitudes toward women in society during those times.
I’m more surprised that she was being serious and it wasn’t just for artistic/branding purposes.
My parents wanted to give me a short 3 letter name that couldn’t be abbreviated. They decided on “Ana” or “Ina” depending how they felt once I was born. Well, my paternal grandmother had other ideas. She had been reading a banned book (at the time in my country there were plenty of banned books). The heroine of this particular book had a 9 letter name. My father refused but she threatened him with never speaking again so he said “F it” and they put that name on the birth certificate. My mother had been in labor for 24 h and we almost died due to complications so she didn’t really care.
So I have a 9 letter name and people still manage to add an extra letter and I get a 10 letter one. It’s funny and frustrating at the same time. Yes, I abbreviate it to a 4 letter name when I introduce myself. Still people try to sneak an extra letter there.
My great-grandparents had a farm and after every birth, he would walk to town and fill out the birth certificate at the courthouse. He loved his wife and wanted to name every daughter after her, but she hated her name, so refused. Finally, at the 6th daughter, it was a rough birth and she couldn’t protest, so he got to name the baby himself and that’s how my grandmother was named after her mother, Grace Agnes.
Fast forward 80+ years, at a family funeral, and we find out that ALL of my great-grandparents daughters were named after their mother, Grace, but with different middle names. No one knows if our great-grandmother knew what my great-grandfather put on the birth certificates, because all the daughters were called by their middle names. Except for my grandmother, named Grace, who they called Dotty!
(Oh, and she also had 5 boys, in between the girls)
Back in the day, before computerized records, what name was actually on your birth certificate wasn’t such a big deal. I had so many friends who went by names completely different from their official ones. Even more in my parents generation.
Took me almost 40 years to find out that my name should have an accent in it as a proper Gaelic name. I blame typewriters in the 80s.
Way, way back when I got my first driver’s license, I used my baptismal certificate because my parents had somehow lost my birth certificate. So my name was listed on the license as Judith, but they called me Judy after Judy Garland, of course. When i got a passport a couple of years later, they required my real birth certificate so I had to get an official copy. Turns out the name on the birth certificate was Judy, not Judith.
Luckily my mother was with me when I applied for a passport because she had to swear she had known me all my life. So, my passport had my official name as Judy. But by this point, my name was now wrong on my school records, social security, and a bunch of other documents. It may seem like a small change, but it was a pain to fix it on all of these documents. I never did find out which parents filled out which documents, but I wish they had agreed.
Anyway, I recently found out that my grandfather spent his entire life until he was ready to retire with the wrong name. On every census record and on his marriage records and kids birth certificates, his name was Alexander James, but it turned out that his father had put his own name on my grandfather’s birth certificate way back in the 1880s. I suspect he was drunk or did not hear the county agent clearly.