On July 20, 1964, in Seattle, Washington, Cornell was born Christopher John Boyle. His parents are Edward F. Boyle, an Irish Catholic pharmacist, and Karen Boyle (née Cornell), a Jewish accountant and self-proclaimed psychic. He and his siblings adopted his mother’s maiden name, Cornell, as their surname after his parents divorced when he was a teenager. Cornell was the youngest of six siblings, with two older brothers and three younger sisters.
He attended Christ the King, a Catholic elementary school, where he sang the 1960s anti-war song “One Tin Soldier” in front of a crowd for the first time. He attended Shorewood High School before dropping out. Cornell’s mother removed him and his sister from Catholic school while he was in seventh grade, claiming that they were about to be expelled for being too inquisitive.
In a 1994 interview, he described the incident as follows: “A religion like that is not meant to be questioned. You’ll notice discrepancies in organized religion since you’re a young person with natural curiosity and half a brain. We both made it apparent in class that we didn’t comprehend it. ‘Explain this to me.’ And because they couldn’t, we started causing a slew of issues.”
Why did Chris Cornell change his last name?
Chris and his siblings changed their surnames from Boyle to his mother’s maiden name after his parents divorced while he was in his early teens.
Chris had defied his Catholic upbringing and was about to be expelled from the religious school he attended when his mother intervened.
