I keep talking about how time keeps flying but Keke Palmer’s son, Leodis, turns two this month. I feel like we just heard about how he was born! Anyway, Keke’s latest movie, One of Them Days, dropped in theaters on January 17 and did very well with critics and at the box office. It co-stars SZA and Katt Williams, and was produced by Issa Rae. Over the past week or so, a clip from an interview that Keke did with Glamour in 2022 has been making the rounds. In it, she’s asked if she prefers to go by “Keke” or her birth name, Lauren. Her answer? She “would love” it if people started calling her Lauren again.
Keke Palmer is eager to use her birth name again!
In a recently resurfaced clip from a 2022 Glamour interview, the One of Them Days actress admitted that she “would love to go to back to” her given name, Lauren, “more than anything.”
“[Keke] went from being just something that my family called me to being something that the whole world called me,” said Palmer, 31, at the time.
The Nope actress explained that her manager at the time “heard my mom call me Keke ’cause I wasn’t listening. So she was like, ‘Keke. Keke!’ ”
“And he said, ‘That’s … that should be your stage name,’ ” she recalled, also saying, “I actually don’t prefer to go by Keke instead of Lauren.”
Palmer is one of many celebrities whose stage name is different from their given name, including Will Ferrell, Michael Keaton and Emma Stone.
Well, the more you know! I had no idea that Keke’s real name was Lauren. I always just assumed Keke was short for Kristen, Keisha, Keira, or something similar. But, yeah, I get it. Some names are personal and reserved for family use only. Lauren was young when they came up with her stage name. How was she to know that it would stick around for this long? I looked it up, and her middle name is Keyana, but Keke is actually inspired by the name of her older sister’s childhood imaginary friend. I wonder if she’ll ever make the switch professionally or just go by it in her everyday life, the way that everyone knows that Lady Gaga’s real name is Stefani, Emma Stone prefers her birth name, Emily, and that Sandra Bullock goes by Sandy.
photos credit: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon, TheStewartOfNY/INSTARimages, Roger Wong/INSTARimages
The quickest way to get other people to use her real name is to start using it herself. Go by Lauren Keke Palmer or something.
You’re in the credits as Keke. You have the power to change this. That being said, I do love her and have since I was watching her in tween shows with my kiddo.
I always think of Thandiwe Newton, who after years of feeling inauthentic and unhappy with the “Thandie” moniker thrust on her earlier in her career, not only asked people to call her Thandiwe, but started requiring it when she is credited. Or horror and Hallmark actresss Crystal Lowe, who has started using Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe, to reclaim her Chinese birth name as part of her professional career.
For others, it could be enough for people just to call them that in real life. Emma, Lady Gaga, etc. may be fine for the “brand,” but in person, they’d prefer colleagues and friends alike call them Emily and Stefani. If that’s the case here or with Palmer, I respect that, too.
But it starts with saying it out loud and realizing the world didn’t end when you asked for what you wanted or needed, then standing by that.
Names are so important; I absolutely respect calling people what they would like to be called (especially in person, apart from a larger brand) and pronouncing it correctly.
Lauren Palmer sounds lovely! She should reclaim it.
omg I love and covet that plaid outfit!!!!!!!! omg!