John Legend was reluctant to change his name and "call himself a legend".
The 'All Of Me' hitmaker - whose real name is John Stephens - admits he was initially worried about changing his surname before he even found success.
Speaking on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, he said: "It was a nickname that some friends started calling me in the studio, just guys that I was collaborating with. The first guy to call me that was J. Ivy. He’s a spoken-word artist from Chicago. We were all in the studio together.
"He just started calling me 'The Legend' because he thought I sounded like one of our old-school soul legends. And it just caught on with our little group of friends and then they were like, ‘We should call you John Legend.'
"It just really was in our little circle. At some point, I had to decide, 'Am I going to stick with John Stephens - which I was perfectly fine with, I wasn’t looking for a stage name - or am I going to go with this more audacious name and call myself a legend before I even have a record deal?'"
Meanwhile, John previously admitted he always wants his work to be the "best" he’s ever done and constantly wants to improve.
He said: "For me, it's just been focusing on the work, focusing on writing songs, focusing on trying to get better as an artist and be as good a performer as I can be. Really focusing very immediately on the project I'm working on and trying to make it the best project I've ever done.
"So I approach every album with that sense of trying to top myself to be better than I've ever been. And I feel that if I keep focusing on the work and trying to be the best I can be, I'm just going to keep going."
