Bo Burnham's Real Name: Bo Burnham

Quick answer: The comedian is known professionally as Bo Burnham. The two independent sources used here do not supply a longer legal form. A September 2008 Guardian profile called him an 18-year-old from Massachusetts and quoted him from his home in Hamilton, Massachusetts. A July 2021 Boston Globe profile independently calls him a Massachusetts native and, at the time of that article, a 30-year-old (The Guardian; The Boston Globe).

Real name and early life

He is known professionally as Bo Burnham. Neither the Guardian nor the Globe uses a longer birth name, so this page titles the public name. The Guardian, dated 20 September 2008, describes him as an 18-year-old songwriter and comic who had just left St. John's Prep, a Catholic boys' high school, and who spoke from his home in Hamilton, Massachusetts. It names his mother, Patricia Burnham, as a staff nurse at his old school, and his father, Scott, as running a construction company, and says he had deferred a place at New York University to perform. The Globe, updated 22 July 2021, independently calls him a Massachusetts native who shot to stardom as a teenager uploading satirical videos from his bedroom, and describes him as 30 years old in that 2021 piece. The two age reports are compatible, but neither article gives a calendar date, so this page does not assert one.

Career highlights

The Guardian says songs he recorded on a synthesiser in his bedroom and posted online for his elder brother, Pete, became hits after circulating among students and quickly gaining millions of page hits. It says he was being compared in the United States to the musical satirist Tom Lehrer, had a regular live act in a Boston nightclub, was represented by a leading comic talent agency, and was due to make a British debut at the Leicester Square Theatre from 10 to 12 October, possibly the youngest comic to head a West End bill. The Globe, more than a decade later, focuses on the Netflix special Bo Burnham: Inside, a one-man comedy special about life in quarantine, and says it had just scored six Emmy nominations.

Name notes for searchers

Bo Burnham is the professional name used by both the Guardian and the Boston Globe. Searchers looking for the early bedroom videos described in 2008 or for the Netflix special Inside are usually aiming at the same person.