17 Celebrities Who Changed Or Shortened Their Names

Her full name is Vera Mindy Chokalingam.

She explained to NHPR that she shortened her name because emcees for comedy shows had a hard time pronouncing it. She said, “I shortened my name, because emcees for these comedy shows would have trouble pronouncing it, and then, they’d make a joke about my last name. My real name is Vera Mindy Chokalingam, and it’s a South Indian name, and it’s a long name. As a performer, these comedians would just butcher it and then be like, ‘I don’t know what it is! Just this girl, Mindy.’ So, I would go do stand-up nights, and I already felt like a huge distance from the audience — just as a new comedian, but then even more distance because it had been made so clear that I was ethnic.”