The Weeknd may have admitted to hating his name when he was a teen (who doesn't, honestly?), but after doing a bit of research, we discovered there's not much to hate. In fact, the history behind his full name is pretty interesting. According to Variety, The Weeknd grew up an only child of Ethiopian immigrants in "a multicultural neighborhood outside Toronto filled with fellow East Africans, as well as people from India, the Middle East, and the Caribbean." His cultured upbringing contributed to his ability to speak not one, but three different languages. That's right, The Weeknd is trilingual.
"Ethiopian — Amharic — was the first language I learned to form sentences in because my grandma, who raised me with my mom, would not speak English," he told Variety in 2020. In Amharic, his last name, "Tesfaye," roughly translates to "my hope," according to Names.org.
As for his first name, Baby Names reports that "Abel" is a Biblical moniker that means "a breath" in Hebrew, while his middle name, "Makkonen," was passed down to him from his dad (whose first name is Makkonen).
