Radio and television personality Charlamagne tha God grew up in the small town of Moncks Corner, South Carolina, as his “The Breakfast Club” bio states. Here, he originally went by his birth name of Lenard Larry McKelvey. In 2017, during an “Elvis Duran and the Morning Show” interview, Charlamagne discussed why he chose to change his name. At the time he came up with the title Charlamagne tha God, he was selling drugs, as he told the morning show host.
“…I used to sell crack amongst [the] corner, my government name is Lenard Larry, my father’s name is Larry, [and] it’s a small town,” Charlamagne said. “If they’d see me, they’d be like, ‘Oh, that’s Larry’s son.’ So I would always say my name was Charles or Charlie, and that’s how the Charlamagne came into play, because Charlamagne is French for Charles the Great.” The New York Times reported that he included “tha God” at the end of the name because he thought it had a cool sound to it. Interestingly enough, when asked about the choice to spell his name as Charlamagne instead of Charlemagne (the proper spelling), the radio host said, “I think I just spelled it wrong.”
