Oprah Winfrey's legal birth name is actually not Oprah Winfrey, but many fans were shocked to find out what her real name is and why she opted to change it in the first place.
This was a recent detail that she shared during an episode of Keke Palmer's podcast, Baby, This Is Keke Palmer.
Her aunt Ida chose this name Orpah Winfrey, and that's why, in all of her legal documents, that's the name that she goes by. The name has a Biblical origin from the book of Ruth, chapter 1, verse 14. Growing up, people inside her home and community struggled to spell and pronounce that. They accidentally flipped the letters and put the P before the R.
The mispronunciation Oprah became so common that it simply stuck, and she used it moving forward. Winfrey shared how her birth certificate still legally reads Orpah. Shockingly, she did not even realize everyone was using the wrong name until she was 20 years old.