Mindy Kaling Calls B.J. Novak an “Integral Part” of Her Family
While you may know her as Kelly Kapoor or Mindy Lahiri onscreen, it turns out Mindy Kaling goes by a few different names offscreen.
And that’s a choice that The Office alum—born Vera Mindy Chokalingam—made early on in her career.
However, Mindy gave fans a glimpse of the initials she prefers to use in real life in an Instagram Story on Feb. 23. While preparing for a flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco, she showed off a red, monogrammed luggage tag with the initials VMK attached to her suitcase—revealing that she apparently uses a hybrid of her real name and stage name in her personal life.
Although the luggage tag still uses the K for Kaling, it still acknowledges the V in Vera, her birth name.
It wasn’t until she started her career in stand-up comedy that the Never Have I Ever creator thought to change her moniker for work.
“Emcees for these comedy shows would have trouble pronouncing it, and then they’d make a joke about my last name,” she shared with NPR in 2020. “As a performer, these comedians would just butcher it and then be like, ‘I don’t know what it is! Just this girl, Mindy.'”
