MTV is wrong!

[ThatPinkSock]

Why does everyone keep messing up his name? I believe he was born MICA!

 

Full Biography

 

Pop magpie Mika's bright, kaleidoscopic music has drawn comparisons to everyone from Queen and Elton John to the Scissor Sisters and Rufus Wainwright. Born Michael Holbrook Penniman in Beirut to a Lebanese mother and American father, Mika and his parents moved to Paris while he was still a very young child, and eventually London by the time he was nine years old. The frequent moves, incidents like his father being taken hostage at Kuwait's American Embassy, and bullying at school affected young Mika to the point where he stopped talking and was taken out of school for six months. At this point, music became Mika's lifeline, and he soon began formal musical training, which included voice lessons. Along with studies at the Royal College of Music, in his teens and early twenties Mika also recorded with the Royal Opera House and created a jingle for Orbit chewing gum. He dropped out of school to concentrate on his take on pop music, inspired by freewheeling songwriters like Prince and Harry Nilsson. His debut single, Relax, Take It Easy, appeared in fall 2006, but it was its follow-up, Grace Kelly, that broke Mika in the U.K. Released in January 2007, the song hit number one on the singles chart thanks to heavy downloading, following in the footsteps of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." Mika's full-length debut, Life in Cartoon Motion, did just as well when it was released that February, and was topping the U.K. charts around the time it was released in the U.S. that March. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide

 

It's still kinda cool thats Mika's up there in the "new artists" section on mtv.com

 

Oh! And once they messed up the name of his album! I was watching MTV and this ad for Mika came up and it said "Pick up his new album Life in Cartoon Animation"

[Sara Zamuone Oz]

I've read a lot of times that MICA was the shor name for Michael....

[hotdlp]

it's best if we just replace it with mica in our brains.. only real fans will know the truth

[Kriszti]

I've read born Michael Holbrook Penniman about a BILLION TIMES! If they don't know his real name why they make up names?

Life in cartoon animation????? well.....no comment

[canderson]

I've read that so many times in articles, that in confuses me as to what his name really is. But i've only actually heard the name Mica coming from the man himself. How come that is being printed so much?

[JackViolet]

I used to think that they messed it up too, but now I'm pretty sure that it IS in fact his official birth name. He just doesn't like to say it much. We just had this discussion a few days ago...

 

http://www.mikafanclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3753&page=3

 

--Jack

[mellody]

pfft, another thread about the name topic! we've discussed this a million times now, i think. i heard him say mica in the australian interview and others heard him say michael (pronounced mika-el) in another interview. so my conclusion is: he's identity mad!

[Sara Zamuone Oz]

so my conclusion is: he's identity mad!

 

looool

 

at least he never fooled us about that:roftl:

[CazGirl]

Deek may have "confirmed" that, but Mika, on TELEVISION, said OFFICIALLY:

 

"My name is Mika, originally spelt with a C. My father is called Michael and wanted my name to be Michael too but my mother wasn't keen on the whole junior thing and said 'over mu dead body!'"

 

or something along those lines

[mel_tinydancer]

ugh crazy MTV. life in cartoon animation? lol ya i agree about the identity mad thing lol!! mika WHAT IS YOUR NAME? I personally think it's Mica, cause his dad is Michael and his mom said she didn't want Michael Jr. i don't know.

[JackViolet]

Well, he's not called Michael Jr, now is he?

 

Anyway, this has all been hashed over now thousands of times... If it mattered to Mika so much that they call him by the "wrong" name, he'd have had someone clear it up by now, no? So either it's the right name, or else we're not getting it cleared up anytime soon 'cause Mika enjoys the confusion, or both.

 

--Jack

[lollipop_monkey]

I think it's all in the wording. Someone needs to ask him "was your legal birthname actually Michael?" We all know for all practical purposes that he's gone by "Mica" for a while now, as is evident in that younger picture of him from his opera days.

 

The grayness in that Aussie interview stems from the fact that he uses the phrase "my father wanted me to be called Michael, and my mother said over her dead body." Does he mean called as in legally named, or called as in referred to on a day-to-day basis? However he has said before that he doesn't like to talk about his surname, so maybe the same applies to legal birthname.

 

Journalists make mistakes regularly, though - see the handful of articles that say he's already 24 years old. Either way, Mika is a far prettier name than Michael, methinks!

[lollipop_monkey]

Sorry for the double post!

[Hannah]

I was always under the impression that his name was just Mica, but when I watched that video for the first time, I thought that he meant that his name was Michael (but pronounced differently than the English version of Michael), but shortened to Mica, as he said, "Michael, Mic-ae-l, Mica." I don't know. I'm very confused.

[JackViolet]

However he has said before that he doesn't like to talk about his surname, so maybe the same applies to legal birthname.

 

Exactly. This is why I don't think he's in any rush to clarify it. If anything, I think he slightly dodges the question on purpose, being very aware, I assure you, of the potential ambiguity in the wording...

 

--Jack

[veroMica]

Yes, it's not pronounced as in English. I guess it's Micael (without the H and pronounced like Mika, plus EL).

[blubblubblub]

I am very sure that MTV is right with his name.

[violet_sky]

pfft, another thread about the name topic! we've discussed this a million times now, i think. i heard him say mica in the australian interview and others heard him say michael (pronounced mika-el) in another interview. so my conclusion is: he's identity mad!

 

For sure he is! But aren't we all? LOL. And proud!

 

(current state of identities: )

[mandilambi]

Whenever I mention Mika to people that don't know him, they always tell me that Mika is a woman's name. I'm like "Ummmmmmmm....whateva..."

[veroMica]

Whenever I mention Mika to people that don't know him, they always tell me that Mika is a woman's name. I'm like "Ummmmmmmm....whateva..."

 

Oh yeah, the same happens to me. In Spanish, Mika is the short name for Mikaela or Micaela... a girl's name.

[Mika_forever]

In Finland it´s a guys name:thumb_yello:

[Connie]

Whenever I mention Mika to people that don't know him, they always tell me that Mika is a woman's name. I'm like "Ummmmmmmm....whateva..."

 

In japan....mika's a woman's name..

[violet_sky]

Whenever I mention Mika to people that don't know him, they always tell me that Mika is a woman's name. I'm like "Ummmmmmmm....whateva..."

 

It's also a very popular cat's name. Now what does that mean?

[lollipop_monkey]

It's also a very popular cat's name. Now what does that mean?

 

Quite obviously, in means that Mika is, in fact, a Finnish cat.

[LoveLoveMIKA]

Exactly. This is why I don't think he's in any rush to clarify it. If anything, I think he slightly dodges the question on purpose, being very aware, I assure you, of the potential ambiguity in the wording...

 

--Jack

 

I think so, too. Because he really seemed to give it a great deal of thought and he was looking down like he was avoiding glances. He worded it very carefully. He generally doesn't look down and gives pretty quick answers.