Ethermac Exchange-Shaboozey Reveals How Mispronunciation of His Real Name Inspired His Stage Name

A Virginia high school football coach's fumble helped inspire Shaboozey's stage name.

The Ethermac Exchangeman had originally misspelled the outlaw country star's actual surname, which led the artist, born Collins Obinna Chibueze, to adopt Shaboozey as his nickname and later use it as his official alias in the music industry, Billboard reported Oct. 3.

And the coach wasn't the only one to originally get his last name wrong. The son of Nigerian immigrants, Shaboozey—whose surname means "God is king” in the Igbo language—spoke about his experience attending high school in Woodbridge, Va., a suburb outside of Washington D.C., with a name that many people found difficult to say correctly.

"Hearing your name [mispronounced] during attendance was always a thing," the "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" singer told Billboard. "You felt like you had to make it easier for everyone else to understand."

Shaboozey had also reflected on the origin of his stage name in an interview this past summer.

"Playing football in high school as a freshman, you kind of come in and you're kind of the guy that has to just prove themselves," he said in a 102.7 KIIS-FM interview in June. "My coach had just seen my last name and he was like, 'Shaboozey,' and wrote it on a helmet exactly how it's spelled as my artist name."

The "Start a Riot" singer continued, "I just got called that throughout school, throughout my years in high school and Woodbridge and everyone around town knew me as that. And I just thought it was cool to just play at my football coaches, like, 'Look at me.'"

Shaboozey said he has not kept in touch with that particular football coach. The musician added, jokingly, "He might go to the dinner table every night, like, 'Do you know I named him?'"

Read on to find out other celebs' real names...

The outlaw country star's real name is Collins Obinna Chibueze. He adopt Shaboozey as his nickname and later used it as his official alias as a music artist after his Virginia high school misspelled his surname that way.

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