Lily Allen's Real Name: Lily Rose Allen

Quick answer: Lily Allen's real name is Lily Rose Allen. She was born on May 2, 1985, in Hammersmith, London. Lily Allen is her own name, and Rose is a middle name. She broke through with the 2006 debut album Alright, Still and the Ivor Novello Award-winning 2009 single "The Fear." For a time she also used the name Lily Rose Cooper (The Guardian; Library of Congress).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress files her as "Allen, Lily, 1985-," and its notes record that she was born Lily Rose Allen on May 2, 1985, in Hammersmith, London. A LOC variant is "Cooper, Lily Rose, 1985-."

The Guardian has reported that her father is the actor Keith Allen, who left when she was four, and her mother is the film producer Alison Owen. For three years her stepfather was Harry Enfield. The paper said she attended 13 schools before dropping out at 15, and that her younger brother Alfie became an actor. She has described her upbringing as turbulent.

Career highlights

A first record deal with London Records, when she was 16, came to nothing. In 2005 she signed with EMI and built a following by posting demos and mixtapes on MySpace. Her 2006 debut, Alright, Still, included songs such as "Smile," "Alfie," and "LDN." The Guardian said admiring critics compared her with the Specials and the Streets, and that the album sold 2.5 million copies and that BBC Three later offered her a short-lived television chat show, Lily Allen and Friends.

In 2009 she released the Ivor Novello Award-winning single "The Fear," a song about celebrity and consumption. The Guardian later wrote that she left music in 2010, as she then thought for good, moved to Gloucestershire, and on Twitter renamed herself Lily Rose Cooper after marrying Sam Cooper. She later found that quieter life unfulfilling and returned to recording. The Library of Congress notes that her third studio album, Sheezus (the title is a pun on Kanye West's Yeezus), appeared in 2014, and that she had changed her professional name back to Lily Allen.

Name notes for searchers

Lily Rose Allen is her own name. Lily Allen is the short professional form she has used for most of her career. Lily Rose Cooper was a married name she used for a period around the early 2010s. Searchers looking for any of those forms are pointing to the same singer.