Ariana Grande’s real name she never uses revealed in Wicked credits
There's an emotional reason why she wanted to be credited by that name
If you, like many people, recently watched Wicked: For Good, then you might have spotted that Ariana Grande's name looks a little different in the credits.
There are plenty of celebrities who go under a different name when performing because of a rule which says two different actors can't work under the same name.
Emma Stone's name is actually Emily Stone, but that was taken by a contestant on Australia's Next Top Model, while David Tennant was born David McDonald.
Then there are the ones who chose an entirely different name to perform under, like Eric Marlon Bishop changing his stage name to Jamie Foxx because it sounded ambiguously unisex and he thought he might get hired for stand up comedy gigs because the organisers would think he was a woman.
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Then there's Mark Sinclair, who took the first half of his stepfather Irving Vincent's surname and the comment from his friends that he was full of energy to get the name 'Vin Diesel'.
Grande's name change isn't quite so dramatic as those examples, but if you look at the Wicked credits you'll see she's listed under her full real name Ariana Grande-Butera.
Last year she explained why she was being credited in the movies under her full name and she explained to Hit Network why she chose to switch things up.
She said: "Technically, it's my little-girl name. It’s technically little Ari’s name
"I just feel like this experience was such a homecoming for me. I feel like I came home to myself in a lot of ways through what I learned from Glinda, from Elphaba.
"That was my name when I went to see the show when I was 10 years old, and it felt like a really lovely way of honoring that. It felt really full-circle, and it just felt like something I wanted to do."
Grande is the surname of Ariana's mother, while Butera is her father's family name - and the use of the name is touching for another reason.
Grande admitted to 'falling out of touch' with her dad Ed Butera in 2013. She said the following year: "I had to accept that it's OK not to get along with somebody and still love them."
The pair have since patched up their relationship, with Ariana saying her dad 'cried' when he saw her full name in the credits of the first Wicked film in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.
Ariana's doesn't seem to be going by that moniker for the credits of everything she's going to be in from now on.
She's still got projects coming up where she's credited as Ariana Grande, so perhaps this is just a limited thing for the production of Wicked only.
Meanwhile, if you've been wondering why Grande and her co-star Cynthia Erivo have been acting like they did on the film's press tour then wonder no more.
It turns out that's just how they express themselves in conversation, and they didn't even realise it was a big, noticeable thing until that viral 'holding space' moment.
Topics: Ariana Grande, TV and Film, Celebrity
Joe Harker