Frank Zappa's Real Name: Frank Vincent Zappa

Quick answer: Frank Zappa's documented full name is Frank Vincent Zappa. Encyclopaedia Britannica records that form and gives his birth date as December 21, 1940, in Baltimore, Maryland. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame identifies him as a 1995 inductee and as the leader of a career that moved among rock, jazz, and classical music (Encyclopaedia Britannica; Rock & Roll Hall of Fame).

Real name and early life

Britannica lists the full name Frank Vincent Zappa and says he was the son of a Sicilian-born meteorologist who worked for the U.S. military. The family moved frequently. When he was about 10, they moved from Baltimore to California, though the moves continued, Britannica says.

Career highlights

Zappa led a series of ensembles under the name the Mothers of Invention and under his own name. The group's debut, the double album Freak Out! (1966), was a key influence on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Britannica records; the Mothers' We're Only in It for the Money (1968) parodied that album's cover. He worked as a guitarist, bandleader, record producer, and orchestral composer, mixing rock, rhythm and blues, jazz, and avant-garde concert music, and often using satire to needle both the political establishment and the counterculture. Britannica likewise describes a 30-year career with more than 60 albums. After Freak Out! he released the jazz-rock album Hot Rats (1969) and, in 1982, the satirical hit "Valley Girl," featuring a vocal by his daughter Moon Unit. In 1985 he testified before Congress against censorship during the Parents' Music Resource Center hearings. After Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, President Vaclav Havel named him a special ambassador on trade, culture, and tourism, Britannica says, though U.S. officials pressured Havel into retracting the appointment. Shortly before his death, his Yellow Shark suite was performed and recorded by Germany's Ensemble Modern. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, a date both sources give, and Britannica notes a posthumous Grammy Award in 1997 as well as a later performance of his pieces at the Proms in London.

Death

He died of prostate cancer on December 4, 1993, in Los Angeles, at age 52, Britannica records.

Name notes for searchers

Frank Vincent Zappa is the documented full name; he was known professionally as Frank Zappa. Searchers looking for the leader of the Mothers of Invention, the maker of Freak Out!, or the 1995 Rock Hall inductee are usually aiming at the same person.