
Billie Eilish Hated Having “A Boy’s Name” Growing Up
“All I wanted was to have a girly name.”
Everyone knows Billie Eilish’s name now, but back when the pop star was younger, she used to wish it was different. Eilish opened up about her past discomfort around her first name in an April 14 British Vogue profile, revealing that she craved “a girly name” before she grew to love her less gender-specific moniker.
“I absolutely hated my name when I was a kid. ‘I thought Billie was a boy’s name.’ That’s all I ever heard every day of my life,” Eilish said, in response to Idris Elba’s question about how she felt growing up with the name Billie. The singer confessed that she longed for a more feminine name, especially one that referenced purple florals. “All I wanted was to have a girly name, like Violet or like Lavender, some sort of, you know, pretty flowery name,” Eilish said.
However, Eilish has since come to love the name Billie so much that she couldn’t imagine ever going by anything else. “Now there’s no other name in the universe that could be my name besides Billie. I love my name so so so much,” she said. “It really is the only possible choice for who I am. I just feel like it’s exactly perfect for me and who I am.”
Eilish, who inherited her first name from her grandfather William, said that it wasn’t until she got into the British sci-fi series Doctor Who that she discovered another woman named Billie.
“The first female Billie I think I knew of was Billie Piper, from Doctor Who. I loved Doctor Who, so I was very, very excited about that,” Eilish said. “But then at the same time I was jealous and mad because I was like, ‘Why would anybody say my name and mean someone else? Unacceptable!’”
Eilish has spoken about her fluid relationship with gender identity in the past, revealing in 2023 that she’s struggled to connect to her feminine side. “I’ve never felt like a woman, to be honest with you,” Eilish said in a Nov. 13 Variety profile. “I’ve never felt feminine. I have to convince myself that I’m, like, a pretty girl. I identify as ‘she/her’ and things like that, but I’ve never really felt like a girl.”