Coco Gauff can walk into most tennis arenas around the world and be recognized by fans, but her name often subjects her to a common inconvenience.

As the Australian Open (AO) grand slam is underway, players from all over the world have traveled to the land down under, including Gauff. However, few know that the 21-year-old's official name isn't the one she goes by.

For those unaware, Coco Gauff’s documented name is Cori Dionne Gauff, and this confusion has often made her life harder. "Every time I check into hotels or [with] people at the airport, they look at my ID… the person sometimes will recognise 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.'"

Gauff also mentioned how the confusion has led to her being denied her own hotel room. She quoted the hotel staff saying, "Well, we don't have your room," when she tried to check in with her real name.

Such situations made her realize that most people know her as Coco, and then she'd say, "It's [booked] probably under Coco, not Cori," which clarified the confusion.

But while Gauff has faced the consequences of the confusion between her real and nicknames multiple times, she isn't particularly confident about how she got the Coco nickname, which has become her identity today.

The Two Stories About the Origin of Coco Gauff’s Nickname

Gauff knows two stories about the origin of her nickname. However, she is entirely ignorant about which of them actually led to her being nicknamed Coco.

She detailed the first one, saying, "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 mum is like yelling at one of us in the house," which many might find hilarious.

On one side, she says that her aunt takes credit for coming up with the nickname. But the second story suggests that her dad gave her the name she's best known by today.

Gauff said, "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."

Gauff has complete freedom to choose the name by which she wants to be known. However, the prestigious accolades she has earned with the name Coco imply that replacing it with her real name may not be easy at all.

Written by

Fatema Kapasi

Edited by

Souvik Roy