Did you know that Calvin Harris isn’t really named Calvin Harris? How about Bob Sinclair (Christopher Le Friant)? These seemingly real names are actually pseudonyms for some of our favorite DJs, and they’re incredibly common. DJs rarely use their real name because they want their branding to match their sound. So someone was born Fire-Penguin Disco Panda (yeah, that’s a real thing), then you’re probably going to have to come up with a cool name.
Below, we’ve taken the stage names of 12 DJs and looked up their real names so that you don’t have to. A lot of these we already knew, some of the Swedish ones are hard for Americans to pronounce, but we actually had no idea DJ Snake’s name was William.
Check it all out below.
Zedd, real name Anton Zaslavski
Calvin Harris, real name Adam Richard Wiles
Fatboy Slim, real name Norman Cook
The Chainsmokers, real names Andrew Taggart & Alex Pall
Axwell, real name Axel Hedfors
Martin Garrix, real name Martijn Gerard Garritsen
Avicii, real name Tim Bergling
Alesso, real name Alessandro Lindblad
Hardwell, real name Robert van Corput
Kaskade, real name Ryan Raddon
Afrojack, real name Nick van de Wall
DJ Snake, real name William Sami Etienne Grigahcine
Tiësto, real name Tijs Michiel Verwest
Inspired by Billboard Dance
All images courtesy of Rukes