This is Cher’s real name: she didn’t even know it herself until she turned 33

Even by showbiz standards, Cher has had such an extraordinary life that it would be crazy not to look back, document it and tell it in her own words.

Faced with such a mammoth task, the 78-year-old has split her memoirs into two volumes. The first, Cher: The Memoir, Part One (Dey Street Books) charts her childhood, adolescence and early career in music, marked by a tempestuous relationship with Sonny Bono (they married when she was still just 16, he was 27...).

We get glimpses of of the singer/actress as a daughter, sister (she has two half-sisters and one half-brother), the wife, lover, mother, music icon, superstar and trailblazer for women’s rights and equality.

The first part of her no-holds-barred autobiography begins with her coming into the world not long after WWII ended and takes us up to the 1980s. The first, Cher: The Memoir, Part One (the book was in fact ghost written) hit the shelves last week and reveals some eye-opening anecdotes. Born into extreme poverty, she was raised by nuns after her biological father, John Sarkisian, a compulsive gambler, lost the family business in a bet.

Cher raised by nuns in a catholic orphanage

Cher remained in a Pennsylvania children’s home while her mother went from relationship to relationship, marrying multiple times - something that was later mirrored in her own romantic liaisons, when she ended up herself being locked in an unhappy marriage with a controlling partner.

Another surprise in The first, Cher: The Memoir, Part One was that Cher didn’t even find out what her real name was until she was 33 and a long-established celebrity.

How Cher discovered her real name

The singer has been formally known under several names during her life, using her paternal surname and adopting those of the men she married.

“I believed Cherilyn was my [birth] name until the day years later when I decided to legally change my name to simply Cher, she explained.

Her teenage mother Georgia Holt had gone into labor earlier than expected and was tired and confused when her daughter was delivered.

“She was exhausted by the time I arrived at around 7:30 a.m. on Monday, May 20,” Cher writes, before adding that a nurse asked what name she had in mind for the newborn baby.

“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?’”

In 1979, Cher legally changed her name to Cher and dropped all four of her previous surnames: Sarkisian, LaPiere, Bono and Allman. She also confronted her mother about the mix-up on her birth certificate.

“Do you even know my real name, Mom?” she asked, to which her mother replied: “I was only a teenager, and I was in a lot of pain. Give me a break.”

There will be more intriguing details about the Grammy winner’s rollercoaster life to come in the second volume of her memoir which is due to hit stores late 2025.