Elton John: stage name caused identity problems

His worldwide fan base only knows the British singer by his stage name Elton John (77), but the superstar was born in 1947 as Reginald Kenneth Dwight. After initially going by his nickname Reggie at the beginning of his career, he called himself Elton John from the mid-1960s – he was inspired by the names of the saxophonist Elton Dean (1945-2006) and the blues singer John Baldry (1941 -2005), whom he supported as an accompanying musician at the time.

As Elton John revealed yesterday, the name change laid the foundation for a successful career, but also caused him serious psychological problems. “I left little Reggie behind, but he was still inside me,” explained the musician. “I wanted to leave my childhood and this person behind, but it caught up with me.”

At the first peak of his career in the 1970s, he realized that under the new name he had put everything into his work and his art, but underneath there was nothing but “emptiness”. He had always struggled with his real name, Reginald Kenneth Dwight, and he also mainly associated “unhappy memories” with his nickname Reggie. Nevertheless, playing with his two identities caused him emotional difficulties throughout his life.

It was recently announced that the superstar was suffering from serious health problems. Elton John lost his sight in his right eye due to an infection he caught this summer. “It will recover, but it is an extremely slow process and it will take some time for vision to return in the affected eye,” he explained in a post on Instagram in September.