Brian Eno's Real Name: Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno

Quick answer: The musician is known as Brian Eno. Encyclopaedia Britannica gives his name in full as Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, born May 15, 1948, in Woodbridge, Suffolk. A Library of Congress name record independently cites the same full name, date, and town from one of his own books. AllMusic gives the shorter form Brian Peter George Eno.

Real name and early life

Britannica's entry on Roxy Music lists keyboardist Brian Eno "in full Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno," born May 15, 1948, in Woodbridge, Suffolk; its main Eno article gives the same date and birthplace. The Library of Congress authority file cites page 138 of a book by Eno for the same long name and the same date and town. AllMusic's biography, by Jason Ankeny, gives Brian Peter George Eno and the same May 15, 1948, birth date.

AllMusic says he was raised in rural Suffolk near a U.S. Air Force base, where he heard doo-wop and early rock and roll on American forces radio, and that art school introduced him to experimental composers and to the tape recorder, which he called his first instrument. Britannica says he began experimenting with electronic music while an art student in the late 1960s.

Career highlights

Both sources say he joined Roxy Music in 1971 and left in 1973 after friction with singer Bryan Ferry. Both name No Pussyfooting (1973), made with Robert Fripp, as an early project built on tape-delay techniques. The sources differ on the year of his solo debut, Here Come the Warm Jets: Britannica gives 1973 and AllMusic gives 1974.

Britannica says he developed his theory of ambient music in the mid-1970s, citing Discrete Music (1975), Music for Films (1978), and Music for Airports, which it dates to 1979. AllMusic instead says Ambient 1: Music for Airports was released in 1978 and gave the genre its name. Both sources describe a major career as a producer. Britannica names David Bowie's Berlin-era albums, Talking Heads' Remain in Light (1980), U2's The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby, Paul Simon's Surprise (2006), and Coldplay's Viva la Vida (2008).

Britannica also says he composed the Microsoft Windows start-up chime in 1995 and later worked with David Byrne, Karl Hyde, and his brother Roger Eno. AllMusic adds the vocal albums Another Day on Earth (2005) and FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE (2022).

Name notes for searchers

People looking up Brian Eno, Eno, Brian Peter George Eno, or the full Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno are looking for the same English musician. Roger Eno is his brother.