Noah Schnapp's Real Name: Noah Schnapp

Quick answer: Noah Schnapp is publicly known by his birth name, Noah Schnapp. The Library of Congress records his birth on October 3, 2004, in New York City, and People gives the same date and city. His parents, Karine and Mitchell Schnapp, are from Montreal. He is best known as Will Byers in Netflix's Stranger Things and as the voice of Charlie Brown in The Peanuts Movie (2015) (LOC; People).

Real name and early life

People says Karine and Mitchell Schnapp welcomed fraternal twins, Noah and Chloe, on October 3, 2004, in New York City. The National Post described his parents as former Montrealers. In 2015 it reported that the family was based in New York and that Noah had started acting in community theater only three years earlier. Variety later described the family home as being in Westchester, New York.

As a boy he landed two film roles in 2015. In Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies he played the son of Tom Hanks's negotiator character, filmed when he was about nine. He told the National Post that Hanks "would always be holding on to my shoulder… and putting me into the spotlight." He also won the voice of Charlie Brown in The Peanuts Movie. He said his mother told him to study the old Peanuts holiday specials on YouTube to get the voice right. The National Post also noted his upcoming part in the indie drama We Only Know So Much, based on the novel of the same title.

Career highlights

While promoting Peanuts, he was already commuting to Atlanta to film a new Netflix series, Stranger Things. His character, Will Byers, vanishes into the Upside Down minutes into the premiere. Co-creator Matt Duffer told Variety that whoever played Will "needed to make a huge impression very, very quickly." The role made him internationally famous.

On January 5, 2023, Schnapp came out as gay in a TikTok video captioned "I guess I'm more similar to Will than I thought." He told Variety that his twin sister was the first person he told and that she was "ecstatic." That year he also started at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2021 he launched TBH, a hazelnut-spread company, which Variety reported was heading into Kroger supermarkets in 2023.

Name notes for searchers

Noah is his first name and Schnapp his family surname. Fan sites and aggregators often give the middle name "Cameron," but we found no primary or major-publication source confirming it, so we list only the name he is documented under. The LOC heading is simply "Schnapp, Noah."