Billie Eilish wasn’t a fan of her name growing up.
The 9-time Grammy-winning singer, 23, shared her thoughts on her name in a recent interview with British Vogue.
“Were you proud of your name, or were you embarrassed?” Idris Elba asked the Birds of a Feather hitmaker, to which the singer replied in negative.
Eilish went fully unfiltered, saying she “absolutely hated” her name and was often told, “I thought Billie was a boy’s name.”
“I remember just being so mad, and all I wanted was to have a girly name, like Violet or like Lavender, some sort of, you know, pretty flowery name.”
The award-winning singer has now made peace with her name. “Now there’s no other name in the universe that could be my name besides Billie,” she told Elba.
“I love my name so so so much. It really is the only possible choice for who I am. I just feel like it’s exactly perfect for me and who I am.”
The pop star went into further details, revealing she was named after her grandfather.
“So technically the first Billy I ever knew was my grandfather, but I never met him,” she said of her grandad, whose first name was William.
Eilish, whose full name is Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell, then grew up to be possessive about her name as she learned about Doctor Who actress Billie Piper—the first woman she heard of with a similar first name.
“I loved Doctor Who, so I was very, very excited about that. But then at the same time I was jealous and mad because I was like, ‘Why would anybody say my name and mean someone else? Unacceptable!'”
