Maggie Gyllenhaal Just Learned Her Real (Jewish) Name
Getty Images
Meet Margalit Gyllenhaal. You probably know her as Maggie.
The actress revealed in an interview with ABC that she didn’t learn her full name until she was 35. In case you were wondering, Margalit means ‘pearl’ in Hebrew.
How does that happen? Well, after marrying to Peter Sarsgaard 2009, Gyllenhaal says she wanted to change her name in her personal life (professionally, she stayed “Gyllenhaal”). When she started the process last year, she found she needed proof of her birth (as one does). After much searching, her parents finally found her birth certificate and magically remembered what they actually named their daughter. Which was not Maggie, to everybody’s surprise.
“They didn’t remember,” Maggie said in an interview with ABC News. “My mother still insists my name is not Margalit.”
Still, her Wikipedia article does not lie — it now lists her full name as Margalit Ruth “Maggie” Gyllenhaal.
ABC News | More ABC News Videos
[h/t Jewcy]
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
