Coco Gauff recently recalled the stories behind her name being changed from ‘Cori’. She noted that her father Corey and one of her aunts demand credit separately with different claims for the modification.
Gauff is currently in contention for the 2024 US Open women’s singles title in New York as the defending champion. On Monday, August 26, she registered her first win of the tournament by overcoming Varvara Gracheva 6-2, 6-0.
In her post-match press conference on Monday, Gauff answered a question about her moniker, which used to be ‘Cori’. To begin with, she hilariously suggested it was a measure to correct household complications as her and her father’s names were homophones.
“But my dad’s name is Corey, and so I guess, you know, they didn’t want me to get my dad and me confused when my mom is like yelling at one of us in the house,” Coco Gauff said.
She then revealed the different stories she had heard from Corey and an aunt. As per the 20-year-old, Corey started calling her ‘Coco’ because he had the nickname ‘Co’ as a youngster. Her aunt, on the other hand, claimed it was she who came up with the name.
“Coco, there’s like two stories. My aunt says she came up with calling me Coco. But then my dad said when he was younger people used to call me Co. Then he was like, I’ll call my daughter Coco. I don’t know which story is actually true, but they both get pretty bad if I don’t say both of them. I just say that,” she added.
Coco Gauff lists ‘official’ struggles of having two names
In the same presser at the 2024 US Open, Coco Gauff further listed her struggles at places like the airport or hotel because of her official name ‘Cori’.
“Well, my real name is Cori. Every time I check into hotels or people at the airport, they look at my ID, obviously the airport you book under your real name, but the person sometimes will recognize me and they’ll be like, ‘Wait, are you Coco?’, I’m like, yeah, it’s just a nickname. I’m not somebody that looks like her,” the world No. 3 said.
She continued:
“In the hotel, sometimes, like, ‘Well, we don’t have your room’, I’m like, it’s probably under Coco, not Cori, and then they’ll do that.”
Coco Gauff’s next opponent at the US Open is Germany’s Tatjana Maria. She currently holds a 1-0 lead over Maria in their head-to-head tally. Maria defeated Solana Sierra in the first round.
