Robert De Niro's Real Name: Robert Anthony De Niro Jr.

Quick answer: Robert De Niro's full name is Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. He was born on August 17, 1943, in New York City, and works under Robert De Niro—the civil form of his birth name without the generational suffix in most billing.

Real name and early life

Biography.com and Library of Congress name authority identify Robert Anthony De Niro Jr., born August 17, 1943, in New York City’s Greenwich Village (Biography.com; LOC). De Niro is the family surname; Anthony is the middle name; Jr. distinguishes him from painter father Robert De Niro Sr. His mother, Virginia Admiral, was also a painter. Raised amid downtown New York art circles, he studied at the Stella Adler Conservatory and worked with Lee Strasberg, grounding a Method approach that later defined his screen reputation for transformative physical roles.

Career highlights

Early features with Brian De Palma (Greetings, Hi, Mom!) led to the Scorsese partnership that shaped modern American film: Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York, Raging Bull (1980)—Academy Award for Best Actor as Jake LaMotta—The King of Comedy, Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995), and The Irishman (2019). He won Best Supporting Actor as young Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II (1974). Landmark non-Scorsese work includes The Deer Hunter, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, Michael Mann’s Heat opposite Al Pacino, and later comedies such as Analyze This and Meet the Parents. After September 11, 2001, he co-founded the Tribeca Film Festival to support Lower Manhattan’s recovery and remains active as actor and producer into the 2020s. Across dramatic and comic billing, the professional name stayed Robert De Niro; the documented full name is Robert Anthony De Niro Jr.

He has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and remains a defining face of late-20th-century American cinema in textbook and museum retrospectives alike.

Name notes for searchers

On-screen credits almost always drop “Jr.” Prefer Biography.com, LOC, and Britannica over tabloid stubs. Father and son share the Robert De Niro string—match the 1943 actor birth when disambiguating. Wikipedia is useful only as a pointer after primary citations.