Chappell Roan Is Ready For People To Start Saying Her Name Right
She chose this name for a reason.
Welcome to Chappell Roan’s universe. In the last few months, the Midwest Princess star (who’s also been crowned as your favorite artists’ favorite artist) has been on many music lovers’ radar. With this reign comes new fans who are invested in her lore, and the first lesson to learn in becoming a Roan enthusiast is pretty standard: how to pronounce the singer’s stage name.
On June 18, a TikTok of Roan sharing how to pronounce her name during a previous performance went viral. “If you’ve been saying ‘shappell rowe-anne,’ this is your final warning,” she told the crowd at her Iowa show from March, before enunciating it as ‘chappell’ — like the church — ‘rown.’ This pronunciation breakdown was needed, as several people have been hilariously adding a ~french accent~ to her moniker or referring to her first name like Dave Chappelle’s last name.
The pronunciation of Roan’s name is important to her because of the meaning behind it. In an August 2022 interview with Cherwell, the singer — whose real name is Kayleigh Rose Amstutz — revealed her late grandfather inspired her stage name. “I have never felt super connected to my real name Kayleigh. My grandfather’s name was Dennis K. Chappell, so I took Chappell in his honor,” Roan said at the time.
Roan added she told her grandfather before his death in 2016 that she would be known as Chappell as a singer. As for her last name, it stemmed from his favorite song called “Strawberry Roan,” an “old Western song about a pinkish red horse.” She said, “It’s a very sentimental name.” It also adds some sweet lore to her own hit song “Pink Pony Club.”
Roan also recently addressed her newly minted title: “your favorite artists’ favorite artist.” (For context, when you search the singer’s name in Google, an alert pops up underneath with that phrase.) In her June 20 interview with Jimmy Fallon, she ensured the audience that she didn’t add that Easter egg to her moniker online, but assumed a fan who works at Google did.
“I know it’s just some assistant that’s like ‘we love her,’” Roan joked, raising her hands to act as if she was typing on the computer.
