What Is Whoopi Goldberg’s Real Name and Why Did She Change It?
Whoopi’s real name is Caryn Elaine Johnson.She was born on November 13, 1955, to Emma Harris and Robert Johnson Jr. in New York City, New York.
In the 70s, Goldberg moved her and her daughter out to California in pursuit of a better life. During the first few years that Whoopi lived in California, she had to take many odd jobs, including a funeral home assistant and a bank teller.During that time, her co-workers had noticed that she had a problem with passing gas frequently and they gave her the nickname, “Whoopi Cushion.”
Once, when she was talking about where her nickname came from, Whoopi had said: “If you get a little gassy, you’ve got to let it go. So people used to say to me ‘You’re like a Whoopee Cushion.’ And that is where the name came from.”
Later on, her mother had told her that the name Whoopi Cushion sounded absurd and then pointed out thatshe would better-received in Hollywood if she went by a Jewish surname, so then, the name “Cushion” got changed to the name “Goldberg.”
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