‘Oh, where is that from? What does it mean?’: Dua Lipa shares what it took for her to finally appreciate her name

As the cover star for Vogue France‘s September issue, Dua Lipa is diving deep into her roots. She gives readers the inside scoop on her name, childhood, and family – while sharing the struggles that she has had with her own identity in the past.

Her first name means “love” in Albanian – which is a representation of her family and her nationality. She told Vogue that her name was suggested by her grandmother who passed away before she was born. Because of its unique origin, many children at her school growing up in Britain pointed out how different her name was from her classmates. She told BBC that she used to wish her name was something like “Hannah” growing up so that she could have a “normal” English name.

She noted that every time she introduced herself people would have questions, “‘Oh, where is that from? What does it mean?’ And that was when I didn’t have to repeat or spell out my name… From there, we’d end up discussing Kosovo, even if no one knew where the country was.”

The teasing she experienced made it more difficult for her to accept her unique name and Albanian roots, saying that she only began to appreciate her given name when she thought of it as her stage name. “I have always been proud of my Albanian roots,” she told Vogue France, “but as I’ve grown, I’ve learned to appreciate my history.”

Both of Dua Lipa’s parents are Albanian, and her father is even a singer himself by the name of Dukagjin Lipa. Her parents were both born in Kosovo, but they moved to London to escape war in former Yugoslavia.

Despite growing up in London, Dua has always felt close to her Albanian culture. In fact, she briefly left London between the ages of eleven and fifteen to spend time in Kosovo, a time which she has called the best of her life. She has said that moving around so often was difficult as a young girl and made accepting her name even more difficult.

Though she has had difficulties coming to terms with her name and identity in the past, Dua has devoted quite a bit of her time and career promoting Kosovo, Albania, and her heritage. Because of this, Albanian President Bajram Begaj granted Dua Lipa Albanian citizenship in 2022. According to President Begaj, Dua has made the country proud with her global engagement and support of important social causes.

While she says that her stage persona is different from who she is in her private life, Dua told Vogue that having her own name as a stage name allowed her to finally appreciate it.

Lipa is currently having her moment – she just appeared in Barbie and is currently teasing her new album which is predicted to hit the shelves in 2024.