Winona Ryder's Real Name: Winona Laura Horowitz

Quick answer: Winona Ryder's real name is Winona Laura Horowitz. She was born on October 29, 1971, in Winona, Minnesota. She chose the surname "Ryder" for the credits of her first film, Lucas (1986) (Library of Congress; Britannica).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress name authority records her under "Ryder, Winona, 1971-" and lists "Horowitz, Winona Laura" as a variant. It cites a published source that gives her full name as Winona Laura Horowitz and says she changed her last name for her first film. Britannica says her parents were Cynthia Palmer and Michael Horowitz, both authors and editors; her father was also a bookseller. She has identified as Jewish, following her father's family heritage.

When she was seven, the family moved to Northern California and lived on land shared with several other families, a ranch commune. At 10 the family moved to Petaluma, and she soon began acting classes at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater. Britannica says she picked Ryder as her screen surname when she made her debut in the romantic comedy-drama Lucas.

Career highlights

Her first box-office hit was Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988). She credits Burton with launching her career. Her first starring role, as Veronica Sawyer in the black comedy Heathers (1988), was well received. She went on to Edward Scissorhands and Mermaids (both 1990) and Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).

Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993) won her a Golden Globe for best supporting actress. She played Jo March in Little Women (1994), and Britannica notes she has received multiple Academy Award nominations. Later 1990s credits include Alien Resurrection (1997) and Girl, Interrupted (1999).

After a 2001 shoplifting arrest in Beverly Hills, she stepped away from acting. She returned with The Darwin Awards and A Scanner Darkly (both 2006), then Star Trek (2009) and Burton's Frankenweenie (2012). She reached a new generation as Joyce Byers in Netflix's Stranger Things (2016–), which brought Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations. She also starred in HBO's The Plot Against America (2020), a drama series. Her narration of Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl earned a Grammy nomination.

Name notes for searchers

Ryder is a chosen professional surname. Her legal birth surname is Horowitz, and Laura is her middle name. She shares her first name with her birthplace, Winona, Minnesota. Searches for "Winona Horowitz" and "Winona Ryder" refer to the same person, and the LOC record links both forms.