CMT posted a cute story: the real names of our fave country artists; past and present.
Patsy Cline was born with the name Virginia Patterson Hensley. And despite the countless references to "Hank" in country music lyrics, Hank Williams' actual name is Hiram King Williams.
Kitty Wells is often considered the Queen of Country Music. It's probably an easier name to remember than her real one, Ellen Muriel Deason.
And Roy Rogers' real name? .. Leonard Franklin Slye.
Conway Twitty borrowed his first and last names from Conway, Ark., and Twitty, Texas. Before that, he was known as Harold Lloyd Jenkins.
John Denver wisely dropped his real name -- John Henry Deutschendorf. Johnny Paycheck once signed his name as Donald Eugene Lytle.
Virginia Wynette Pugh is better known as ... Tammy Wynette. And Crystal Gayle changed her name from Brenda Gail Webb on the advice of her older sister, Loretta Lynn, noting that Brenda liked that Southern staple, Krystal hamburgers.
One of the biggest country stars of the 1980s kept his real first name but slightly adjusted his surname, transforming from Randy Traywick to Randy Travis. Back then, he shared the country charts with the mother-daughter duo, Diana and Christina Ciminella, a.k.a., the Judds. Naomi Judd used her maiden name for the famous moniker, while Wynonna eventually dropped it altogether.
Speaking of famous couples, how about Samuel Smith and Audrey Perry? Oh, you might know them by their middle names -- Timothy and Faith. Tim McGraw adopted his last name when he found out his real father was Tug McGraw, while Faith Hill kept her last name from her first marriage before she became a superstar.
Dropping the first name and using the middle name is a common practice in country music. There's Troyal Garth Brooks, Valerie June Carter, Morna Anne Murray, Margaret LeAnn Rimes, Ernest Clay Walker and Jessie Keith Whitley.
Meanwhile, some artists chop their last names, like Gary Allan Herzberg, Toby Keith Covel and Jimmy Wayne Barber.
You can swap out your old name with the French term for "The Voice," thus evolving from Gary Wayne Vernon Jr. to Gary LeVox of Rascal Flatts.
Finally, do you know the artist with the best-selling country album in history? That would be Eileen Regina Edwards. When her mother married a man in the Ojibwa Indian tribe, Eileen took his last name. To honor him, she also changed her first name to the Ojibwa word for "on my way." Indeed she was. The world knows her now as Shania Twain.
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