Ted Bundy's Real Name: Theodore Robert Bundy

Quick answer: Ted Bundy's full adult name was Theodore Robert Bundy. He was born Theodore Robert Cowell on November 24, 1946, in Burlington, Vermont, and was executed on January 24, 1989, in Florida. “Ted” is the familiar short form of Theodore.

Real name and early life

Biography.com lists FULL NAME Theodore Robert Bundy and birth as Theodore Robert Cowell; Library of Congress authority is Bundy, Ted (Biography.com; LOC). His mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, gave birth at a home for unwed mothers; to conceal illegitimacy he was raised for a time as if his grandparents were his parents and his mother his sister. Louise later married Johnnie Bundy in Tacoma, Washington (1951), and Ted took the Bundy surname. He graduated from the University of Washington (psychology, 1972) and briefly attended law school in Utah.

Career highlights (crimes and case)

Bundy confessed to murdering 30 women across several states in the 1970s; investigators have long suspected a higher total (Biography.com). He often posed as injured to lure victims. Arrested in Utah with burglary tools, convicted in a kidnapping case, he escaped custody twice in 1977, then killed in Florida including Chi Omega sorority victims at Florida State and 12-year-old Kimberly Leach. He received multiple death sentences, married Carole Ann Boone in a Florida courtroom in 1980 (they later had a daughter; she divorced him in 1986), spent years on death row appealing, and was executed in Florida’s electric chair on January 24, 1989. The documented names are birth Theodore Robert Cowell and later Theodore Robert Bundy.

Books such as Ann Rule’s The Stranger Beside Me and later films and documentaries keep both the Cowell and Bundy names in circulation.

Name notes for searchers

Cowell is the birth surname; Bundy comes from his stepfather. Prefer Biography.com and LOC over true-crime fandom. Wikipedia is useful only as a pointer after primary citations.