John Legend may be a legend in the music world, but Legend is not his actual last name, and it’s kind of a funny story about how the star got his catchy stage name. During an appearance on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon,” the singer spoke about how he went from John Stephens to John Legend, which has a much better ring to it if you ask us! He told Fallon, “Well, it was a nickname that some friends started calling me in the studio, just guys that I was collaborating with.”
“The first guy to call me that was J. Ivy. He’s a spoken word artist from Chicago. I met him through Kanye (West),” he explained. “We were all in the studio together. He just started calling me ‘The Legend’ because he thought I sounded like one of our old-school soul legends.” At first, the legendary nickname stuck with the star and his group of friends, but Ye urged Legend to keep the nickname and even referred to him as “John Legend” on a mixtape, and the name continued to stick. Legend decided to keep the name, and it’s safe to say it paid off.
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The singer also spoke about his name change in a 2008 interview with MTV News — telling a similar story as he did to Fallon. He said that his goal has always been to live up to the name.
