Quentin Tarantino's Real Name: Quentin Jerome Tarantino

Quick answer: Quentin Tarantino's full name is Quentin Jerome Tarantino. He was born on March 27, 1963, in Knoxville, Tennessee. He is the writer-director of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Django Unchained, and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. He has won two Academy Awards for original screenplay. He works under his birth name (Library of Congress; Britannica).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress name authority files him as "Tarantino, Quentin" and lists "Tarantino, Quentin Jerome" as a variant. One publisher's galley it cites reads "Quentin Jerome Tarantino, b. 3/27/63." Another note records his birth in Knoxville, Tennessee. Jerome is his middle name.

Britannica describes him as an American director and screenwriter known for "stylized neo-noir violence, razor-sharp dialogue, and fascination with film and pop culture." Before directing, he worked in a video store in California. He then sold two screenplays that became True Romance (1993) and Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994).

Career highlights

He made his directing debut in 1992 with Reservoir Dogs, a violent film about a failed jewelry-store robbery. Pulp Fiction (1994), with its intersecting crime stories, won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and earned Tarantino and Roger Avary the Academy Award for best original screenplay. Jackie Brown (1997) adapted an Elmore Leonard novel.

He co-wrote Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Vol. 2 (2004) with Uma Thurman, who starred as an assassin seeking revenge. Grindhouse (2007) paired his Death Proof with Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror as a tribute to B-movie double features.

His next three films reimagined history. Inglourious Basterds (2009) follows Jewish American soldiers hunting Nazis in occupied France. Django Unchained (2012), about a freed slave trying to rescue his wife, won him a second screenplay Oscar. The Hateful Eight (2015) traps a group of strangers at an inn during a blizzard. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019), with Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as an actor and his stuntman in 1969 Los Angeles, received a standing ovation at its Cannes premiere. In 2021 he published a novel based on that film. Britannica notes that he also works as an actor and producer.

Name notes for searchers

Tarantino is his family surname, so there is no stage name. Search engines sometimes suggest "Quentin Tarantino real name" because of his distinctive name, but the LOC record confirms that Quentin Jerome Tarantino is his birth name. A Russian-script form, Тарантино, Квентин, also appears in the LOC record for foreign-language editions.