Awkwafina's Real Name: Nora Lum

Quick answer: Awkwafina's documented original name is Nora Lum. Biography.com uses that form and dates her birth to June 2, 1988, in Stony Brook, New York. Variety independently identifies her as Nora Lum and describes her as growing up in Queens (Biography; Variety).

Real name and early life

She is known professionally as Awkwafina. Biography.com says she was born Nora Lum on June 2, 1988, in Stony Brook, on Long Island, the daughter of a Chinese American father, Wally, and a mother, Tia, who had come to the United States from South Korea to study at SUNY New Paltz and later worked as a painter, and that she was later raised in Queens. Variety also places her growing up in Queens and says her mother died when she was four. Biography.com says her father and grandmother raised her in Forest Hills, Queens, credits her grandmother with boosting her confidence, and records that she attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School after taking up the trumpet, then SUNY Albany, where she majored in journalism and minored in women's studies. The same profile notes early inspiration from seeing Margaret Cho on television and later from Lucy Liu.

Career highlights

Biography.com says that after college she worked in book publicity and, once a 2012 comic rap video circulated widely, left that job and supported herself with other work while making music; her album Yellow Ranger appeared in 2014, and she later appeared in the documentary Bad Rap. Variety also dates the viral-video breakthrough to 2012. She then moved into film with Ocean's 8 and Crazy Rich Asians, followed by Lulu Wang's The Farewell, which Variety and Biography.com both treat as a career landmark. Biography.com records a Golden Globe for best performance by an actress in a motion picture, musical or comedy, for The Farewell, and says the win made her the first Asian American woman to receive that Globe. Biography.com says she also co-created and stars in Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens. Variety, writing as awards attention built, likewise mentions that Comedy Central series and a later role in Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Name notes for searchers

Nora Lum is the documented original name; the professional name is Awkwafina. Searchers looking for The Farewell, Crazy Rich Asians, or Nora From Queens are usually aiming at the same person.