The Weeknd teased that he might drop last name, Tesfaye, and legally change his full name to just Abel.
“You guys are hilarious. I feel like i should change my stage name to ABEL at this point lol,” he tweeted.
“Maybe pull a YE and just legally change my name to ABEL. no last name. Like Madonna or Cher or Prince. I don’t know it seems like a lot,” he also wrote.
Pulling a Ye is in reference to a judge approving Kanye West’s petition in October to legally change his name to simply Ye. The Weeknd went on to consider how his name would be written, as it relates to his former stage name.
The possible name change received the support of John Legend.
The Weeknd shared in Reddit AMA nearly a decade ago that “The Weekend” was originally going to be the title of what later became known as House of Balloons, but since he “hated my name at the time,” he choose to take up The Weekend as his stage name and drop the “e” since there was already a Canadian band by that name.
In a GQ profile last year, The Weeknd spoke about how he has since learned to differentiate between his stage name and real name. “The lines were blurry at the beginning,” he said. “And as my career developed—as I developed as a man—it’s become very clear that Abel is someone I go home to every night. And The Weeknd is someone I go to work as.”