Millie Bobby Brown just admitted that’s not her real name, and now everything I thought I knew is a lie

Millie Bobby Brown charmed us all when she broke out as the sweet, adorable, and lost Eleven when Stranger Things premiered on Netflix in 2016. She’s even more famous thanks to her Enola Holmes franchise and stars in the Russo Brothers’ new sci-fi film, The Electric State. But while all three of her names might be household names at this point, it turns out they’re not her real names!

Yes, along with talking about how people need to stop criticizing her for “aging badly,” Brown is sharing that her middle name is actually different. In an interview with Buzzfeed UK, she explains, “My middle name is Bonnie.” She adds, “I never told anyone that. You heard it here first.”

Okay. I need to sit down for a minute! Millie Bobby Brown’s real name is… Millie Bonnie Brown. How did we get here? What is fake and what is reality? As the actress explains, she switched “Bonnie” with “Bobby.” Why? Well, there’s no big story or shocking reason. She just wanted to, so she did it.

I respect her desire to follow her instincts and do what feels right, but I do have to ask why this was necessary? Millie Bonnie Brown and Millie Bobby Brown sound pretty much identical! There is no doubt she would have been cast as Eleven and achieved the success she has with her OG middle name. Right? Am I wrong? Or maybe using “Bonnie” would have changed something in the universe (or the Upside Down) and, like that ridiculous Ashton Kutcher movie The Butterfly Effect that manages to be both cheesy and disturbing, her whole career would have panned out differently?

If Millie Bobby Brown wasn’t enough B’s (say that five times), she married Jake Bonjiovi in 2024 and her married name is Millie Bobby Brown Bonjiovi. So… yeah. I’m very happy for the adorable couple, but that kind of hurts my brain a little.

Just like I don’t want to live in a world where you-know-who is President a second time, or where my beloved avocados cost $10 (just kidding, they cost a much more reasonable $5), I can’t wrap my mind around a world where the Stranger Things star isn’t really named Millie Bobby Brown. But I do understand changing your name. My parents named me Alexandra, but when I went to daycare, I told a caregiver my name was “Aya” one day. They told my mom, and she shrugged and figured that’s what I wanted my name to be. After years of explaining to teachers why the name on the class list wasn’t what I wanted to be called, I had it legally changed when I was in my early 20s.

So why “Bobby?” In an interview with Wired in Nov. 2022, Brown answered “the web’s most searched questions” including the origin of her name. She said “Bobby coming from my father, his name’s Bobby.” So, her dad is Bobby Brown, and she’s Millie Bobby Brown. But also Millie Bonnie Brown. But also Millie Bobby Brown Bonjiovi.

While I’ll have to adjust to this big news that Brown just dropped, I appreciate that she’s so self-assured at such a young age, too. No matter what name she wants to go by, Millie is the best. Now she just needs to spill what happens at the end of Stranger Things! No? She won’t? It was worth a shot.