She told Wired, “I lot of people think, you know, ‘cuz my full name is Lauren Keyana Palmer, and they’re, ‘Oh, that’s where [Keke comes] from.’ Wrong. I actually hate when people credit Keyana for Keke because, actually, Keke should be credited for Keyana. My sister had an imaginary friend named Keke, and that’s how I got the nickname, and that’s what informed my full name.”
She also told Glamour, “The only people that called me Keke were people in my family. Then one day, my manager at that time heard my mom call me Keke because I wasn’t listening. He said, ‘That should be your stage name.’ So [Keke] went from being just something that my family called me, to being something that the whole world called me. And more than anything, I would love to go back to Lauren.”
