The Real Reason Yvonne Strahovski Changed Her Name

Yvonne Strahovski is an award-nominated actor known for her acclaimed performances in popular television shows such as "The Handmaid's Tale," "Chuck," and "Dexter." Fans who've heard her flawless American accent on-screen may assume she's from the states, but Strahovski was born and raised in Australia. Yet her parents emigrated from Poland as young adults. She told The Sydney Morning Herald, "Their story is fascinating and magnificent and terrifying." Despite growing up in Australia, Strahovski's parents passed on their native language. Strahovski told ChuckTV.net, "Polish was actually my first language." She added, "I'm fluent in Polish. I read and write. My whole family speaks Polish."

These details about Strahovski's background are helpful in understanding the Polish roots of her last name. However, you may be surprised to learn that she wasn't born with the last name Strahovski. Read on to learn what her last name was and why she ended up changing it.

According to Collider, Yvonne Strahovski's last name is spelled "Strzechowski." So, what was her motivation for changing the Polish spelling? She explained, "If it was now, I probably wouldn't have done it. It was part of, I guess, the culture back then. This old Hollywood thinking to anglicize your name a bit or make it less complicated or less of a mouthful." She elaborated on why she didn't entirely change her name, saying, "It just always rubbed me the wrong way to change it to something completely different, which was suggested, so I kind of went for this phonetic spelling version."

However, when Strahovski arrived in Los Angeles, someone suggested a different last name other than "Strzechowski" — and it wasn't "Strahovski." A 2015 GQ article revealed that Yvonne Stryker was an option for the then-LA newbie. She said, "Look, at the end of the day, it was my call. And I understood the reasoning behind it — the spelling of my name is a mouthful of letters." She added, "So I have the same last name — but now it's spelled phonetically, so people know how to pronounce it." Well, that settles that!

Besides her last name, Yvonne Strahovski dealt with another issue that had unfortunate effects on her career. In a 2017 Coveteur article, the actor revealed, "I grew up with really bad acne." She recalled her past, explaining, "My first beauty memory — because I was such a tomboy — was in high school, in my senior year right at the end, where I had terrible acne. My friend at school came up to me with a concealer stick and said, 'Do you know what this is? You might benefit from using one of these things.' That's when I first started using it."

In a 2020 interview for Collider, Strahovski discussed how her struggle with acne played a part in booking acting roles. She said, "I used to always think, I can't go to the states with this acne problem because I'll never get a job — having worked in Australia and having been rejected from a couple of jobs because of my skin problem, at the time." She added, "Ironically for me, my face is my job, it's my tool, it's what I used predominantly in my craft." Despite her pimple problems, Strahovski eventually found success in Hollywood.