Olivia Wilde recently explained how to correctly pronounce her real last name. Her birth name is Olivia Cockburn, but she changed it to her current surname in honor of the famous Irish author and poet Oscar Wilde. She also shared whether she experienced bullying due to her unique surname during her youth and discussed her brother Charlie, who shares the same name.
Olivia Wilde reveals the correct pronunciation of her birth name
In a conversation with Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, the Don’t Worry Darling actress revealed how exactly her last name, Cockburn, is pronounced. She said, “I’ll tell you something — and there’s no way you would know this — it’s pronounced ‘Coburn.’ Which I want you to imagine being a kid, when you’re… Because it’s spelled ‘Cockburn!”
She further added, referring to her Scottish real surname, “It is very much like ‘[A] Boy Named Sue,’ you know what I mean? Like, it’s character building.” Moreover, she also stated that the kids need to have a “devastating” name for them to be remembered and get bullied for. The host asked her if she was ever bullied for her surname. Wilde responded that she learned the lesson early to laugh at the jokes made at her without getting upset over it. She clarified that this doesn’t mean that she approves of bullying but believed that even she found her surname funny.
She mentioned that she doesn’t know whether living with such a unique surname was harder for her or her younger brother, Charlie. Shepard asked if life has now gotten better after years. To this, she responded, “I don’t know, have we? I think having the last name looks like Cockburn in any city in any decade…” The host remarked that he finds it somewhat “comforting” to know that, regardless of how much the world evolves, a name like this will inevitably attract teasing, and that one should learn to accept it. Wilde acknowledged that this experience teaches people to eventually learn to laugh at the jokes made about their surname when they were younger.
Originally reported by Shazmeen Navrange on ComingSoon.net.
