What is Jay-Z's birth name?

Jay-Z’s birth name is Shawn Carter, more fully recorded as Shawn Corey Carter. He was born on December 4, 1969, and became one of the most commercially successful and influential rappers in hip-hop history.

Carter was raised in the Marcy Houses housing project in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He began building a reputation through local performances and independent recordings before releasing his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, in 1996. The album established his detailed storytelling and business-minded persona.

The name Jay-Z has several commonly discussed origins, including connections to the J/Z subway lines near his Brooklyn neighborhood and to his mentor Jaz-O. Jay-Z has used several stylizations over his career, including Jay Z and JAY-Z, but these are professional forms rather than his legal birth name.

The wrong options are birth names of other notable figures: Marshall Mathers is Eminem, Andre Young is Dr. Dre, and Curtis Jackson is 50 Cent. “Shawn Carter” is the standard short form of Jay-Z’s full birth name.