Celebrity Big Brother housemates – and viewers! – did a double take last night when Ginuwine revealed his real name.
Now, we all knew Ginuwine wasn’t likely to be the ‘Pony’ musician’s actual birth name, right?
But it still came as a surprise to many when he let slip his true moniker on Wednesday night’s episode: Elgin Baylor Lumpkin!
Ginuwine, 47, had been telling some of the housemates about the inspiration behind his music.
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He said: “A lot of the stuff I write, if I’m writing it you’ll see my name, Elgin Lumpkin, wrote it, then it’s probably from something in my life.”
Before he could continue, however, the group all had one question: er, who?!
Ginuwine explained: “Elgin Lumpkin. That’s my full name.”
Say it again?
“Elgin Lumpkin,” he repeated.
Well, former Coronation Street icon Amanda Barrie was enthralled by the revelation! “I love that name,” she gushed. “It sounds like a cartoon character!”
Ginuwine explained the name originates from North Carolina, Detroit and Washington DC, but he dropped it in favour of his stage name, Ginuwine, which represents who he is as a person.
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“I couldn’t say Genuine. And then I always envisioned a crowd and three syllables. You always hear [people chanting names of three syllables] so I wanted a name with three syllables and that represented who I was as a man and a person.”
Amanda’s response? “You’ll always be Mr Lumpkin to me!”
Naturally, viewers loved this new piece of information and took to social media in droves to share their thoughts on Ginuwine’s rather unusual birth name.
Others thought Elgin Lumpkin sounded exotic – like the name of a mythical character, classical poet or good ol’ fashioned English dinner favourite!
More suggestions included a fairytale character or title of a BBC4 documentary!
CBB airs nightly at 9pm on Channel 5.