Add Page Six on Google Oprah Winfrey left Keke Palmer speechless after revealing that her real name is Orpah.
“It was Orpah from the Bible,” the talk show icon divulged to the stunned “Nope” actress during Tuesday’s episode of “Baby, This Is Keke Palmer.”
The TV star then explained the scriptural background and context of the name.
“Ruth, first chapter, 14th verse. It’s that whole Ruth and Naomi story,” she shared.
“And you know, Ruth said, ‘Wherever thy goest, I will go.’ And then Orpah said, ‘I’m going back. I’m sorry. I can’t. Too long. The road’s too long.’”
Palmer questioned why Winfrey felt the need to change her name to Oprah, to which she replied that she “was a kid.”
“Nobody knew how to spell it,” she recalled.
“So, it turned out on my birth certificate, it’s Orpah,” she explained. “And then people started calling me Oprah. And so it’s just the difference between the P being before the R or after the R. So once they started with Oprah, that’s it.”
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The TV personality, 72, revealed that she was roughly 20 years old when she finally learned that the name on her birth certificate was different from what friends and family had been calling her.
Oprah pointed out that the “Akeelah and the Bee” star, 32, also has a different name on her birth certificate — Lauren Keyana Palmer.
“I’m so happy that you knew that!” Palmer exclaimed.
Winfrey has also playfully named her media empire Harpo productions, which is simply Oprah spelled backwards.
A 1983 audition tape — which Winfrey resurfaced during a 2005 episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” —gave more details on the background of her name.
“My folks did not really like Harpo Marx,” she said, referring to the Marx Brothers comedian.
“We did not even have a television set for a number of years. Originally, I was named from the Bible by Aunt Ida, who named me from Ruth, the first chapter at the 14th verse, Orpah, but no one knew how to spell in my home, and that’s why I ended up being Oprah.”
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