The Story Behind Sting's Real Name and How He Got His Famous Nickname
If you've ever wondered who Sting was before he was a rockstar, we've got your answer.
Famed English musician Sting first rose to prominence in 1977 as the bassist and frontman of The Police, and that success continued into a booming solo career as well. Over the last few decades Sting has cemented himself as a part of the international cultural consciousness, now he’s joining The Voice Season 26 as a Mega Mentor for Team Snoop and Team Gwen, while Jennifer Hudson will share her own expertise with Team Bublé and Team Reba.
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The world knows the rock legend as “Sting," but what is his real name? Read on for everything you need to know.
What is Sting’s real name?
We know him as Sting (the musician, not the wrestler of the same name), his friends and family call him Sting, but he was born Gordon Matthew Sumner on October 2, 1951.
His life began pretty ordinarily; his mother was a hairdresser and his father delivered milk, according to his IMDb bio. Out of school, Sumner earned money working a variety of jobs including as a tax officer and a teacher.
The transition from student and worker to worldwide rockstar happened slowly at first, then all at once. He played jazz between working and classes and earned his famous nickname for a tendency to wear a black and yellow sweater, resembling a large bee or wasp. He told Howard Stern a fellow musician came up with the nickname for him when he was about 18 years old, and it just stuck. In fact, his own mom even started to call him Sting. But even though the whole world knows him and refers to him as Sting, he hasn't made it legal. "My passport says Gordon Matthew Sumner," he told Stern in 2016.
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Sting helped form The Police in early 1977 and they experienced almost immediate success with five chart-topping albums in as many years, not to mention six Grammys.
In 1985, Sting debuted his first solo album The Dream of the Blue Turtles and he’s still releasing albums almost four decades later. His most well-known songs include “Every Breath You Take,” “Message in a Bottle,” “Fields of Gold,” and “Desert Rose.”
Sting has acted in several TV shows and movies
In addition to music, Sting has graced the silver screen on more than one occasion. He played Feyd Rautha of House Harkonnen in the 1984 adaptation of Dune and JD in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. He lent his vocal cords to some non-musical roles as the voice of the villainous Zarn in four episodes of Captain Planet and the Planeteers and as an animated version of himself in Bee Movie.
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If Sting has a trophy case in his house, it’d be holding 17 Grammys, three Brit Awards, two MTV Video Music Awards, a Golden Globe, a Billboard Music Award, and that just scratches the surface. His song “Every Breath You Take” had been played on the radio more than 15 million times as of 2019, making it one of the most played radio songs of all time. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth named Sting a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his contributions to music.
Catch Sting and the rest of the action on The Voice, Mondays and Tuesdays on NBC. New episodes stream the next day on Peacock.
