Cher recalled her reaction when she first learned her real name when she was in her 30s.
In her new memoir, Cher: The Memoir, Part 1, the 77-year-old singer reveals that she requested a copy of her birth certificate in 1979 when she applied for a legal change to her famous namesake. I'm writing about what I did. The Grammy winner wrote: He said he was “shocked” to see his name listed as “Cheryl” on the document.
“I believed Sherilyn was my name until years later, when I decided to legally change my name to simply Cher,” the Moonstruck actress said, according to People magazine. He recalls it in his book.
Cher said she was “shocked” when she learned her real name for the first time in her 30s. (Stefano Lerandini/AFP via Getty Images)
Cher's late mother, Georgia Holt, was just 19 years old when she gave birth to Cher in 1946. In her book, Cher explains that Holt went into labor a month earlier than her due date. Cher wrote that her mother endured a long labor without medication at a small hospital in El Centro, California.
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“By the time I arrived around 7:30 a.m. on Monday, May 20th, she was exhausted,” the music icon wrote.
After Holt gave birth to Cher, a nurse visited her and asked her what name she had chosen for her baby.
“My mother had no idea, but when the woman insisted, she said, 'Well, Lana Turner is my favorite actress and the girl's name is Cheryl. My mother's name is Linda. , what about Sherilyn?'' Cher wrote.
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The singer's mother Georgia Holt gave birth to Cher when she was 19 years old. (Margaret Norton/NBCU Photobank/NBCUniversal, via Getty Images, via Getty Images)
Holt was so exhausted and recovering from a difficult labor that she didn't realize the nurse had mistakenly registered her newborn's name as Cheryl.
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After making the discovery, Cher recalled confronting her mother and asking Holt, “Mommy, do you even know my real name?”
“I believed Sherilyn was my name until the day, years later, when I decided to legally change my name to simply Cher.”
The “Believe” songstress wrote that Georgia received her daughter's birth certificate and shrugged her shoulders after looking at the document.
“I was a teenager and I was in a lot of pain. Please rest,” Cher recalled her mother telling her.
The Grammy Award winner changed her name to her famous namesake in 1979. (Ron Tom/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Cher was the only child of Holt and John Sarkisian, who divorced when Holt was 10 months old. Holt and Sarkisian remarried in 1965, but divorced the following year. In addition to Sarkisian, Holt was married to five other husbands. Her last marriage was to Hamilton T. Holt in 1970. The two divorced in 1974, but Holt kept her ex-husband's last name until his death in 2022 at age 96.
The singer took Cher's last name after Holt's third husband, Gilbert LaPierre, legally adopted her. Cher also shares the last names of her ex-husbands Sonny Bono and Gregg Allman.
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The Oscar winner decided to drop all four of her last names, including Sarkisian, Lapierre, Bono and Allman, when legally changing her name to Cher.
