Cobie Smulders's Real Name: Jacoba Francisca Maria Smulders

Quick answer: Cobie Smulders's original name is Jacoba Francisca Maria Smulders. She was born on April 3, 1982, in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is a Canadian actress known as Robin Scherbatsky on How I Met Your Mother and as agent Maria Hill in the Marvel films (The Canadian Encyclopedia).

Real name and early life

The Canadian Encyclopedia records her as Jacoba "Cobie" Francisca Maria Smulders, born 3 April 1982 in Vancouver, British Columbia. It says she was named Jacoba and nicknamed Cobie after a great-aunt, and was raised mainly in White Rock before returning to Vancouver in her teens. The Library of Congress heading is "Smulders, Cobie, 1982-," with the variant "Smulders, Jacoba Francisca Maria, 1982-." One of eight children, she became involved in theatre at Lord Byng Secondary School, modeled professionally, and graduated with honours in 2000. She enrolled in the marine biology program at the University of Victoria, then moved to New York to pursue acting.

Career highlights

After small roles in Vancouver-shot series, she landed a lead in the adventure series Veritas: The Quest (2003–04) and later guest roles on Smallville, Andromeda, and The L Word. She was then cast as Robin Scherbatsky on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005–14). The show made a running joke of her Canadian background, the encyclopedia says, after the writers asked to capitalize on it; the character became a Tim Hortons-loving Vancouver Canucks fan who was briefly famous in Canada as a teen pop star named Robin Sparkles. Brian D. Johnson wrote in Maclean's in 2013 that no one had brought more "kooky CanCon" to an American television show than Smulders.

In 2012 she appeared as agent Maria Hill in The Avengers and later returned to the role in other Marvel projects, including Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013–15) and Secret Invasion (2023). She voiced Wonder Woman in The Lego Movie (2014) and its 2019 sequel. Other credits include Delivery Man (2013), Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016), the Netflix series Friends from College (2017–19), and a 2021 season of American Crime Story. In 2017 she made her Broadway debut in Noël Coward's Present Laughter and won a Theatre World Award for outstanding Broadway debut.

Name notes for searchers

Jacoba Francisca Maria Smulders is the documented original name; Cobie is a nickname from Jacoba, and she has been billed as Cobie Smulders. Searchers looking for Jacoba, Cobie, or Smulders in this context are usually aiming at the same person.