Beyoncé used the name Beyoncé before becoming a solo recording artist; it was already her stage and professional name in Destiny’s Child.
Her full birth name is Beyoncé Giselle Knowles. She performed with Destiny’s Child during the group’s rise in the late 1990s and early 2000s, so her solo career did not begin with a different public first name. Her first solo album, Dangerously in Love, continued the same name.
The name Beyoncé comes from her mother Tina Knowles-Lawson’s family history. Tina has explained that Beyoncé was chosen as a tribute to her Creole heritage and to a family surname connected with her ancestry.
A common mix-up involves “Sasha Fierce,” which was not an earlier name. Sasha Fierce was a stage persona Beyoncé introduced around the release of her 2008 double album I Am... Sasha Fierce. “Knowles” is her family surname, while Beyoncé is the distinctive first name under which she became famous.