How did Snoop Dogg get his rap name?
On his debut single, ‘Who Am I? (What’s My Name?)’, Snoop Dogg made sure the world knew exactly what to call him.
The man born Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr, a name he inherited from his father, had taken on an elaborately recognisable stage name for his rap career, but through the years that followed his arrival on the scene, he would pick at and alter this stage name to suit his needs. One part, though, has always remained the same: Snoop.
For his first couple of albums, the rapper was known as Snoop Doggy Dogg, and he leaned heavily on the “dog” theme. Album one was, of course, 1993’s Doggystyle, followed three years later by Tha Doggfather.
By the time of his third record, Snoop had tired of the “doggy” theme. Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told, released in 1998, was the first of his albums to be headlined by Snoop Dogg, with the “doggy” part of his rap name dropped. He has attributed this decision to getting a little older and a little wiser, and thus wanting to move on.
He has primarily been known as Snoop Dogg since his third album, but there have been changes along the way. He famously released a reggae album as Snoop Lion in 2012, but that phase didn’t go much further. Snoop Lion became Snoop Dogg again in due course.
Around the same period that he was going by Snoop Lion, he also released a compilation of electronic music under a new variation of his “Snoop” name. This was DJ Snoopadelic, which was specifically a reference to his love of George Clinton and his Funkadelic project.
“Snoop Lion, Snoop Dogg, DJ Snoopadelic,” he remarked to The Fader at the time. “They only know one thing: make music that’s timeless and bangs. I’m Snooperman. I go into the booth, and when I come out, I’m damn sure gonna have a hit record for yo ass.” The Snooperman, then, is happy to experiment with different identities as part of his public persona, but one thing always remains constant: the “Snoop” part. But where did he get that from?
Snoop once revealed the origins of his famous moniker during a conversation with NBC Nightly News’ Lester Holt. It came down to two things: his love of Peanuts, the children’s cartoon show adapted from the comic strip of the same name, and his mother’s recognition of his interest in the show. One of the main characters was, of course, Snoopy.
Snoop explained, “My mother’d say, ‘You watch [Snoopy the dog] so much, you startin’ to look like him.’ So she started calling me Snoopy.” From that point on, she never stopped calling him that.
He added, “That’s the only name my mother called me my whole life. My mother never called me by my real name, my whole life. All she ever called me was Snoopy. That became my name, that became who I was when I went outside to play, when I went to school, when I went to church, Snoopy.”