Born Caryn Elaine Johnson, Whoopi Goldberg did what plenty of Hollywood Stars have done: she changed her name to sound a little more glamouros. But the story behind her name change trumps just about everyone’s rationale for a new name.

Turns out The View co-host had no problem letting ’em rip in her youth. Famously, she once told Time Magazine, “If you get a little gassy, you’ve got to let it go. So people used to say to me, ‘You’re like a whoopee cushion.’ And that’s where the name came from.”

Likened to a whoopy cushion  by her peers in theatre, she adopted the name. As for the change of last name, to Goldberg, she assumed a Jewish surname would get her further in Hollywood.