Do you believe Cher isn't Cher's birth name -- and that she only found out what it was as an adult?

The pop icon has shared how she discovered that the name she thought for years her mother named her as a baby was not the one that actually appears on her birth certificate.

"I believed Cherilyn was my name," the 78-year-old wrote in her autobiography, Cher: The Memoir, Part One, released Nov. 19 and obtained by E! News, "until the day years later when I decided to legally change my name to simply Cher."

The "Believe" singer said in her book that after her mother Georgia Holt gave birth to her in 1946, a nurse visited her room and asked what she planned to name her baby.

"My mother had no idea, but the woman insisted so she replied, 'Well, Lana Turner's my favorite actress and her little girl's called Cheryl. My mother's name is Lynda, so how about Cherilyn?'"