What was Le Corbusier's birth name?

Le Corbusier’s birth name was Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris.

He was born on 6 October 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, into a French-speaking Swiss family. Before becoming internationally famous, he trained and worked under his family name, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, and developed as an architect, designer, painter and writer.

The name Le Corbusier was a professional pseudonym adopted in 1920 while he was contributing to the Paris-based journal L’Esprit Nouveau. It was linked to the altered family name Lecorbésier, associated with his maternal ancestry. The new name also suited his belief that people could reinvent themselves.

Quiz answers sometimes shorten his birth name to Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, which is a historically used form of his name but omits “Gris.” The fully stated birth name is Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris. He later became a French citizen in 1930, another reason biographies may describe him as Swiss-French rather than simply Swiss.