Is there a better name for an actor known for car movies than ‘Vin Diesel’?
A name like ‘Jack Gas’ or ‘Steve Clutch’ just doesn’t quite hit the same, and it’s hard to imagine the Fast & Furious movies without Diesel fuelling them.
But while it seems like the actor’s name is made for the movies, it’s actually not his name at all.
And before you start speculating, Diesel didn’t change his name specifically to make himself more fitting for the role of Dominic Toretto – though that would have been a pretty dedicated move.
The actor actually revealed his real name during an appearance on The Ellen Show in March 2005, the year before The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift hit theaters.
Ellen quickly began to grill Diesel about his real name after she introduced him to the show, speculating that ‘Vin Diesel’ couldn’t ‘possibly’ be his name.
Diesel immediately came clean, admitting: “You know what, it’s not.”
He then revealed his real name; a title which bares almost no resemblance to the name he’s known by across the globe.
Diesel said: “My real name is Mark Vincent.”
The actor went on to explain that he adopted the name ‘Vin Diesel’ when he previously worked as a bouncer, when he and his co-workers took on ‘fictitious names’ in case they ever ‘got in trouble’.
“They just started calling me Vin Diesel, for some crazy reason,” he said.
Ellen deduced that ‘Vin’ had come from Diesel’s real last name, but she was left stumped as to where ‘Diesel’ might have come from.
Diesel then explained: “In New York, when you were kind of built up a little bit, they’d say ‘that guy’s Diesel’.”
The moniker stuck for the actor throughout his nine years working as a bouncer, and he went on to use the title when he landed roles on the big screen.
Though Diesel made his revelation on Ellen 20 years ago, some of his fans are only just learning the truth about his name.
On Reddit, one person wrote: “It’s funny, even with a name as ridiculous as Vin Diesel I never even questioned whether that was his real name or not haha.”
“He actually got vin from Vehicle Identification Number,” another user joked, as a third added: “I had just accepted it. Diesel is the actual last name of the guy who made the first diesel engine.”
The actor might have been born with a different name, but he’ll probably always be Vin Diesel to us!
