Coco Gauff's Real Name: Cori Dionne Gauff

Quick answer: Coco Gauff's real name is Cori Dionne Gauff. She was born on March 13, 2004, in Delray Beach, Florida. "Coco" is a family nickname she has gone by since childhood. She won the 2023 U.S. Open at 19 and the 2025 French Open, and she first made headlines at 15 by beating Venus Williams at Wimbledon (Britannica; Library of Congress).

Real name and early life

Britannica's quick facts give "In full: Cori Dionne Gauff," born March 13, 2004, in Delray Beach. The Library of Congress files her as "Gauff, Coco, 2004-," with the variant "Gauff, Cori." Its citation describes her as Cori "Coco" Gauff, an American tennis player born March 13, 2004.

Britannica says her parents, Corey Gauff and Candi Odom Gauff, were college athletes. Corey played basketball at Georgia State, and Candi competed in hurdles and heptathlon at Florida State. By seven she was training with a tennis pro two hours a day. The family moved from Atlanta back to their hometown of Delray Beach, a hub for tennis training, and her mother homeschooled her. She has two younger brothers, Codey and Cameron. At 10 she trained at a French academy run by a coach who had worked for years with Serena Williams. At 13 she became the youngest U.S. Open junior girls' finalist in history, and at 14 she won the 2018 French Open junior title.

Career highlights

In July 2019, still listed as Cori Gauff, she beat 39-year-old Venus Williams in straight sets in the first round of Wimbledon. Britannica notes that soon there would be "no more headlines about Cori Gauff." She reached her first major final at the 2022 French Open but lost to Iga Świątek. In 2023 she won titles in Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati. At the U.S. Open that year she came back from a set down to beat Aryna Sabalenka in the final. That made her only the third American teenager to win the women's title, after Tracy Austin and Serena Williams.

In 2024 she reached the Australian and French Open semifinals, won the French Open women's doubles with Kateřina Siniaková, and played at the Paris Olympics. In June 2025 she beat top-ranked Sabalenka in three sets to win the French Open. In 2026 she reached her first Wimbledon semifinal, losing to Karolina Muchová in three sets.

Name notes for searchers

Gauff explained the nickname to Sports Illustrated Kids: sharing a name with her father got confusing at home. An aunt suggested "Coco," since people had called her father "Co" growing up. Cori is her legal first name. Dionne is her middle name.