Shaboozey's Stage Name Was Inspired By A Misspelling Of His Real Name

Shaboozey didn't come up with his own stage name — in fact, the rising country star's professional name was inspired by a mistake, he shared during an Oct. 3 interview with Billboard .

Shaboozey, born Collins Obinna Chibueze, is the son of Nigerian parents. While he spent two years at a boarding school in Nigeria for junior high, he went to high school where he grew up, outside of Woodbridge, Virginia.

At one point during high school, his football coach misspelled his last name. However, the blunder ultimately turned into the singer's stage name, now known by the millions of listeners who stream his music.

Shaboozey told Billboard that "it could be a little confusing at times" growing up Nigerian American in the suburbs.

"Hearing your name (mispronounced) during attendance was always a thing; you felt like you had to make it easier for everyone else to understand," he said.

According to Billboard, Chibueze means "God is king" in Igbo, a language spoken in Nigeria. The "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" singer and newly crowned best new artist of the People's Choice Country Awards fittingly told the outlet, "If I'm going to do anything, I'm going to make sure I'm damn good at it."

Back in June, Shaboozey shared more of the backstory behind his stage name during an interview with 102.7 KIISFM.

"Playing football in high school as a freshman, you come in and you're kind of the guy that has to prove themselves," he said. "And my coach had seen my last name, and he was like 'Shaboozey,' wrote it on a helmet — like exactly how it's spelled as my artist name — and smacked it on my helmet."

Shaboozey leaned into the mistake, adding, "As a freshman, they want you to earn your rankings and I just thought it would be cool.

"I just got called that throughout my years in high school and Woodbridge and everyone around town knew me as that," he said. "I thought it was cool to just play up my football coaches like, 'Look at me now.'"

The singer said that he doesn't keep in touch with his former football coach who inadvertently gave him his stage name, but joked, "He might go to the dinner table every night and say, 'Do you know I named him?'"

While Shaboozey released two records in 2018 and 2022, he was thrust further into the spotlight in 2024 when he was featured on two songs on Beyoncé's record "Cowboy Carter . "

His 2024 single "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" was named one of Spotify's top 5 songs of the summer . The song also made Shaboozey the second Black artist, after Beyoncé, to have a No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs charts.