Hans Zimmer's Real Name: Hans Florian Zimmer

Quick answer: Hans Zimmer's full name is Hans Florian Zimmer. He was born on September 12, 1957, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Hans Zimmer is his real name, and Florian is his middle name. He is a film composer and producer known for scores including The Lion King (1994) and Dune: Part One (2021) (Britannica Kids; Library of Congress).

Real name and early life

Britannica Kids states, "Hans Zimmer, in full Hans Florian Zimmer," and gives his birth date and place as September 12, 1957, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The Library of Congress files him as "Zimmer, Hans," and a citation note records "Hans Florian Zimmer; b. Sep. 12, 1957 in Frankfurt/Main, Germany."

Britannica Kids says his mother was a musician and classically trained pianist and his father was an engineer and inventor. His parents were Jewish survivors of World War II. He was raised in Königstein-Falkenstein. As a child he took piano lessons for only about two weeks, preferring to experiment and invent his own sounds. About age 12 he saw Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, scored by Ennio Morricone, which he has credited with inspiring him to compose. He attended the École d'Humanité in Switzerland and, as a teenager, Hurtwood House in England, where he was drawn to pop music.

Career highlights

In the 1970s he played keyboards and synthesizers in bands, including the short-lived hard rock group Krakatoa, and wrote advertising jingles. In the early 1980s he began working with film composer Stanley Myers. The two combined synthesizers with orchestra and cofounded Lillie Yard studios in London, collaborating on scores including Moonlighting (1982). Zimmer worked as a score producer on Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor (1987).

A turning point came when Barry Levinson heard his score for A World Apart (1988) and hired him for Rain Man (1988), which brought Zimmer his first Academy Award nomination for best original score. He also scored Driving Miss Daisy (1989). Britannica Kids says he has composed music for more than 500 film, television, and video-game projects, among them The Lion King and Dune: Part One, as well as video games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and FIFA 19. In 2007 The Daily Telegraph named him one of its top 100 living geniuses. His official site is hans-zimmer.com.

Name notes for searchers

Hans is his given first name, Florian his middle name, and Zimmer his family surname. He works professionally as Hans Zimmer.