Robin Williams's Real Name: Robin McLaurin Williams

Quick answer: Robin Williams's full name was Robin McLaurin Williams. He was born on July 21, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois, and died on August 11, 2014, in Tiburon, California. He performed under Robin Williams—the civil form of his birth name.

Real name and early life

Britannica and the Library of Congress identify Robin McLaurin Williams (Britannica; LOC). Williams is the family surname; McLaurin is the middle name. He used humor in grade school, moved with his family to San Francisco as a teenager, studied improvisation while briefly at Claremont, trained at the College of Marin, and won a scholarship to Juilliard in New York before returning to California comedy clubs.

Career highlights

Television stardom came as the alien Mork on Happy Days and then Mork & Mindy (1978–82). Film highlights include Good Morning, Vietnam and Dead Poets Society (Oscar nominations), family hits Mrs. Doubtfire and Jumanji, and a supporting-actor Oscar for Good Will Hunting (1997). He also voiced the Genie in Disney’s Aladdin, starred in The Fisher King and One Hour Photo, headlined Night at the Museum, and returned to series TV with The Crazy Ones (2013–14). Charity work included Comic Relief fundraising against poverty and frequent USO performances for American troops abroad. Early film leads also included Popeye (1980) and The World According to Garp (1982). He made his Broadway acting debut in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (2011) after earlier stage work in Waiting for Godot. Across stand-up and screen, billing stayed Robin Williams; the documented full name was Robin McLaurin Williams.

He was also celebrated for improvisational stand-up specials such as the album and video Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002).

Name notes for searchers

There is no separate stage surname; McLaurin is often omitted in casual mentions. Prefer Britannica and LOC over tabloid retrospectives. Wikipedia is useful only as a pointer after primary citations.