From Mary Louise to Meryl...

Mary Louise Streep was born on 22 June 1949 to parents Mary and Harry, and her moniker was given to her to continue a family tradition.

But it was her father who came up with the name that the world would eventually know her by, even though she strongly disliked it at the time. She said: "At birth I had to be named Mary because my mother’s name was Mary and her mother’s name was Mary and [so on]. I named my first daughter Mary because I [wanted] to make everybody happy in the family, basically. "So I was born Mary and Louise was my mother’s best friend... Louise Buckman. So I was named after her. But I was always called Meryl. My father made that name up and he liked that name. I hated it! “I wanted to be named Patty or Cathy. But I had glasses, and my name was Meryl, and [my last name] had a ‘p’ on the end. It should have been ‘Street.’ [I always thought], ‘Why didn’t they just put a ‘t’ on the end instead of ‘p’?’"