Beyoncé’s Extended Family Was ‘Not Happy’ With Her Name

Beyoncé is typically referred to solely by her first name. Her name has been the title of one of her albums and is well known all throughout the world. Years ago, though, her family was less than pleased with it. When her mother, Tina Knowles, named her, the extended family expressed their displeasure. 

Beyoncé’s family did not like her name, even though it was a tribute to them

When Knowles was pregnant with Beyoncé, she realized her family name, Beyince was fading out. Only one of her siblings had a son and she knew she was pregnant with a daughter. 

“I said, ‘Oh, God, we’ll run out of Beyinces,’” she told Rolling Stone.

She decided to keep her maiden name alive through her daughter. Though it was a tribute to the family, they were less than impressed with the name.

“My family was not happy,” she said. “My dad said, ‘She’s gonna be really mad at you, because that’s a last name.’ And I’m like, ‘It’s not a last name to anybody but you guys.’”

Beyoncé’s mother’s last name was slightly different from everyone else’s

In promotional images for Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé wore a sash with Beyince written on it. This was a nod to the family name, though it was not one her mother had. 

“A lot of people don’t know that Beyoncé is my last name. It’s my maiden name,” Knowles said on the podcast In My Head With Heather Thomson (via Today). “My name was Celestine Beyoncé, which at that time was not a cool thing to have that weird name. I wanted my name to be Linda Smith because those were the cool names.” 

Knowles explained that the difference in last names came down to an error on her birth certificate.

“(I) asked my mother when I was grown. I was like, ‘Why is my brother’s name spelled B-E-Y-I-N-C-E? You know, it’s all these different spellings.’ And my mom’s reply to me was like, ‘That’s what they put on your birth certificate.’”

Knowles’ mother tried to correct the error once, to no avail.

“So I said, ‘Well, why didn’t you argue and make them correct it?’ And she said, ‘I did one time. The first time, and I was told ‘Be happy that you’re getting a birth certificate’ because, at one time, Black people didn’t get birth certificates.”

Her husband never goes by his birth name

While Beyoncé almost exclusively goes by her given name, her husband, Jay-Z, never goes by his. His birth name is Shawn Carter, but he adopted Jay-Z years ago. People in his neighborhood began calling him Jazzy, and he created the name as nods to his mentor, Jaz-O, and the J/Z train line in his childhood neighborhood. Even his mother stopped referring to him as Shawn.

“No, [my mom] calls me Jay,” he told The Guardian in 2010. “Nobody calls me Shawn except my grandmother.”