Tina Knowles is opening up about having a different name than her family.
In her memoir Matriarch, the fashion designer and businesswoman, 71, reveals how a mix-up led to her using a different name than her family.
When Knowles was a child, she recalls asking her mother about why each of her siblings had “different spellings” of their parents’ last names.
Blair Caldwell
Tina Knowles in March 2025
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Her mother plainly stated that the last name written on Knowles’ birth certificate – “Beyoncé” — was “what they put” on her birth certificate.
Knowles then asked why her mother didn’t ask them to “fix it” or “fight” for the right name.
“I did one time,” her mother replied. “The first time.”
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Beyoncé in January 2023
Ultimately, she was told she should be grateful to have a birth certificate at all because “Black people didn’t even get birth certificates.”
At the time, Knowles declared she wanted to change her name, but her mother insisted she couldn’t because it was “beautiful.”
Because Knowles claimed no one could say her name “Celestine,” she wanted “something easy.”
But her mother reinforced the history that came with Knowles’ name — that it was a name that belonged to her mother’s sister who died as a baby and her great-grandmother.
To keep the family’s history going, and because Knowles’ first-born daughter resembled her mother who had so much “pride” in their family history, she named her Beyoncé.
For Knowles, the spelling made no difference — it was “the most valuable possession” she had.
“The most valuable possession I had, and it was now mine to give,” she writes in the book. “I’ve kept a word going.
In an interview with PEOPLE for the World’s Most Beautiful issue, Knowles revealed that she initially “didn’t want to write a book because I thought [people] only want to know all my kids’ business.”
She didn’t think people would be “interested” in her.
“I’ve lived this incredible life, and you really don’t realize it until you start writing everything down,” she said.
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Tina Knowles ‘Matriarch’ memoir
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According to Knowles, her writing journey began roughly 12 years prior when she realized she wanted to record her story.
“I just started thinking about the fact that I never met my grandparents and the history that I gathered for my mom,” she said of her late mother Agnes Buyincé (their surnames differ due to a hospital clerical error when Knowles was born.)
Added Knowles: “I wish that I would have asked her more. I wish I would have investigated more.”
Matriarch is available now wherever books are sold.
Read the original article on People
