![\"Riley](\"https:\/\/www.whiskeyriff.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/rileygreenthinkasyoudrunk-770x565.jpg\")
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That\u2019s one way to come up with a middle name.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no secret that for decades, artist from all sorts of genres, and even actors and other kinds of performers, have used stage names. Marilyn Monroe, Freddie Mercury, Elton John, Eminem and so many others have used them as a tool to create some sort of persona, and it can really work. Even\u00a0country artists do it<\/strong>\u2026<\/p>\n Including\u00a0Riley Green<\/strong>\u00a0 whose real name is actually Jonathan Riley Green. He joked in an interview with Katie of the\u00a0Katie & Company<\/em>\u00a0radio show that he \u201cJ\u201d is actually silent, but yes, that is his real name, though no one has ever actually called him that, including his parents:<\/p>\n \u201cWell, it\u2019s actually \u2018Jonathan.\u2019 It\u2019s a soft \u2018J.\u2019 Nobody\u2019s ever called me Jonathan. I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n He went on to explain the funny, and very interesting story, of how his parents came up with the name Riley. He says that his great grandaddy, who he never knew, got dementia in his later years, and he started calling Riley\u2019s dad, whose name is Kevon\u2026 Riley.<\/p>\n I guess Riley\u2019s parents liked the name, because when Riley was born, they decided to use that as his middle name.<\/p>\n Family names are incredibly common especially in the South, my middle name is my grandma\u2019s first name, so that part isn\u2019t crazy at all\u2026 but I had to laugh at the fact that this was a sort of made up family name that his parents must\u2019ve just liked? Or maybe it was some sort of tribute to Paul, who knows\u2026 either way, it clearly stuck, because Riley says no one has ever called him Jonathan, and he doesn\u2019t even think he would turn around if he heard someone calling that name:<\/p>\n \u201cI know that I go the name Riley because my great grandaddy Paul, who I didn\u2019t know, got little dementia, and he started calling my dad Riley. My dad\u2019s name is Kevon. My parent\u2019s were like, yep, we\u2019re going to name our first son Riley. Nobody\u2019s ever called me Jonathan, no. I don\u2019t even think I would turn if I heard it.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I honestly didn\u2019t know for a long time that it wasn\u2019t actually his real first name, and I feel like there\u2019s a reason it stuck from the beginning, because it\u2019s hard to even think of him as being anything other than Riley.<\/p>\n And in case you\u2019ve had a hard time keeping up with everything he has going on right now, the Alabama native just recently\u00a0announced a new album,\u00a0That\u2019s Just Me<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>will be out everywhere this fall, on September 18th. In addition to being on the road for his\u00a0Cowboy As It Gets Tour<\/em>\u00a0right now, Riley will be a judge on\u00a0The Voice<\/em>\u00a0this fall, and he also recently appeared four a four-show stint on the TV series Marshals, so he\u2019s got a lot going on.<\/p>\n Oh yeah, and he also has an\u00a0honorary\u00a0doctorate<\/strong>\u00a0degree now, which he joked in the interview is the most surprising thing he\u2019s done in his career so far by a wide margin\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cThink As You Drunk\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n