Mindy Kaling has become a household name but her on-screen moniker is different from the one she uses in real life.
The 45-year-old was born Vera Mindy Chokalingam but changed her name to ‘Mindy Kaling’ when she began her career in stand-up comedy.
However, it appears off-screen she prefers a mixture of the two as she revealed in a photo shared to her Instagram Stories earlier this week.
Posting a photo of a red, monogrammed luggage tag attached to her suitcase for a trip to San Francisco from LA, Mindy revealed she uses the initials VMK.
The initials acknowledge her birth name, Vera, as well as her middle name, Mindy, and stage name, Kaling.
In 2020, Mindy confessed that she changed her birth at the beginning of her career because people had trouble pronouncing it.
“Emcees for these comedy shows would have trouble pronouncing it, and then they’d make a joke about my last name,” she shared with NPR in 2020. “As a performer, these comedians would just butcher it and then be like, ‘I don’t know what it is! Just this girl, Mindy.'”
Despite her reservations about changing her surname, which represents her South Indian heritage, Mindy ultimately decided she was in good company.
© Instagram“When you do comedy – everyone from Albert Brooks, Woody Allen – these are all comedians who changed their names,” she explained. “I felt it was the easiest thing for me to do.”
Mindy admitted she made the right decision, adding: “It’s bittersweet, but I have to say, it was such a help to my career to have a name that people could pronounce.”
© Getty ImagesMindy’s stage name has now been cemented in Hollywood after she received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame earlier this month.
“Yesterday was one of the most special days of my life,” she captioned a carousel of photos from the ceremony.
“I was told after receiving my star that I was the first South Asian woman to have a star on the Walk of Fame. I’m humbled by that. I am so proud to be South Asian and I want to make my community proud of everything I do but more importantly I want to help usher in the next generation of South Asian stars – who are already making a huge impact across the world.”
© Getty ImagesNot only is Mindy a talented actress and a successful businesswoman with her own production company that has created a string of hit shows, she’s also a proud mom of three.
Mindy is a doting mother to daughter Katherine, seven, son Spencer, four, and daughter Anna, who recently celebrated her first birthday.
© InstagramMindy prefers to keep her family out of the spotlight and will conceal her children’s identities whenever she shares photos on social media.
The actress admitted that she had a burning desire to have children after her mother passed away in 2012.
© Instagram“I feel blessed because equal to my desire to find a man, I wanted to have children,” she shared on the Table for Two podcast. “And that intensified when my mother died.
“I didn’t want to be on my deathbed…and not have anybody around my bed. I wanted there to be kids and I wanted there to be grandkids.”
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