Ariana Grande talked about a lot of future plans in a recent radio interview: The 25-year-old will tie the knot with fiancé Pete Davidson sometime between five months and five years from now, for example, and she intends on having three kids with the 24-year-old comedian.
Perhaps most surprising, however, is Grande’s plan to hyphenate her name and become Ariana Grande-Davidson once she and her fiancé walk down the aisle.
But as she spoke to Beats 1 host Ebro Darden on Friday, August 17, the Sweetener singer went back and forth about what to do with her professional name.
At first, Grande said she’d like to one day be known simply as Ariana. “Isn’t that sick?” she said. “I feel like it’s got a ring to it.”
But then she backtracked. “I have to keep Grande because of my grandpa,” she said. “I think of him with everything I do. And he was so proud of our name. I should keep it. Imma keep it. Never mind. We’ll talk later. I have a lot of decisions to make.”
Each time she said her last name during the interview, however, she pronounced it “gran-dee.” Darden, 43, eventually asked her about that alternate pronunciation.
“My grandpa said ‘gran-dee,’” she explained. “My brother [Frankie Grande] kinda changed it to ‘gran-day’ because ‘gran-dee’ was kind of the Americanized version of it. [He] made it more chill. And then my brother was like, ‘We should say ‘gran-day.’ It’s so fun to say it. It’s a funny name’ … I grew up saying ‘gran-dee,’ and I think of my grandpa, and I wish I said ‘gran-dee’ more.”
Darden suggested Grande’s grandfather changed the pronunciation of the name to assimilate in America. Grande agreed and took the opportunity to mock her name.
“Literally, my name is Ariana Grande-Butera,’” she said, donning a thick Italian accent. “Literally, that’s my name. I’m, like, a pizza. I’m a f—king meatball. You know what I mean? I’m, like, parmesan … What is that? A special at La Masseria?”
