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Cher decided to change her name when she was 33-years-old, and was entirely caught off guard by the legal name listed on her birth certificate.
The "Believe" icon recently released part one of her long-awaited memoir, Cher: The Memoir, Part One and Part Two, in which she detailed discovering the unexpected name registered on the legal document.
"I believed Cherilyn was my name until the day years later when I decided to legally change my name to simply Cher."
Cher's mother, Georgia Holt, gave birth to the star in 1946 when she was just 19 years old amid a "long, unmedicated labor" per People. After Cher was born, the nurse asked an exhausted Georgia to share the name she'd chosen for her daughter.
"My mother had no idea, but the woman insisted so she replied, 'Well, Lana Turner's my favorite actress and her little girl's called Cheryl. My mother's name is Lynda, so how about Cherilyn?'" The nurse decided to run with "Cheryl," and that's the name that remained on the certificate for over three decades.
Upon learning of the error, Cher asked her mother if she even knew her real name, to which Holt replied: "I was only a teenager, and I was in a lot of pain. Give me a break."
In 1979, "Cheryl" legally changed her name to "Cher" and dropped her four surnames (one from her father, one from her adopted father, and two from ex-husbands Sonny Bono and Gregg Allman).
For more from part one of Cher: The Memoir, Part One and Part Two, read: Cher Reveals Unsettling Details About Sonny Bono Relationship In New Memoir.
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