Ariana Grande is, well …Ariana Grande. She’s been known by that name for as long as she’s been in the spotlight, which has been over a decade. Grande first rose to fame for the role of Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon show Victorious. Even then, she was credited as Ariana Grande.
Her career continued after Victorious, going on to the show’s spinoff Sam & Cat and then to a very successful music career that has seen Grande release seven studio albums. Grande now stars as one of the leads in her biggest acting project to date, Wicked—the adaptation of the Broadway musical, which is set to be divided into two parts. Grande plays Glinda the Good Witch, one of the two main characters.
Related: What happens in the Wicked movie? We’ve got spoilers!
The actress has certainly done well for herself, before Wicked and in the movie itself. And it is in Wicked that, for the first time, the actress is credited by a different name than what she’s always been known as. So, what is Ariana Grande’s real name? Why has she never used it before? And what makes Wicked different?
What’s Ariana Grande’s real name?
Ariana Grande’s real name, or to be clearer, her full name is Ariana Grande-Butera. The actress chose to be credited as that in Wicked, and spoke about the reason to EW, saying, “I just feel like this experience was such a homecoming for me. I feel like I came home to myself in a lot of ways, through what I learned from Glinda, from Elphaba.”
The actress got more specific about the decision, linking it to her childhood self, by saying, “That was my name when I went to see the show when I was 10 years old, and it felt like a really lovely way of honoring that. It felt really full circle, and it just felt like something I wanted to do.”
Grande has spoken before about her connection with the musical. Over ten years ago, Grande even gave an interview where she mentioned she’d love to play Glinda. In the interview, Grande is talking to KiddNation host Kidd Kraddick, who asks her which of the two lead roles in Wicked she’d like to play, and Grande quickly answers “Glinda, for sure” before he even finishes the question.
In the video, she admitted that Elphaba’s “singing part” would be more fun, but insisted the role of Glinda suited her better. The host also challenges Grande to a Wicked knowledge test that proves Grande knows all the lyrics. That probably made the filming of Wicked so much easier.
The new movie is based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel and the award-winning musical. It follows the complicated friendship between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), who will one day become the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda (Grande), who will one day be known as Glinda the Good Witch, as the two attend Shiz University.
A prequel to The Wizard of Oz, the movie is set to be split into two parts, with Wicked Part 2 set to be released in November 2025. The movie also stars Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Dinklage, and Bowen Yang.
