Originally appeared on E! Online.
Will the real Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning please stand up?
While the famous siblings have been known as Dakota and Elle in Hollywood for years, those are actually their middle names. So, who are the “All Her Fault” and “The Neon Demon” actresses really?
They were born Hannah Dakota Fanning and Mary Elle Fanning.
But as Elle previously explained, the sisters never used their first names growing up, even before they became famous.
“My mom goes by her middle name, and my sister goes by her middle name. Her first name is Hannah,” the 27-year-old shared with Glamour in 2016. “It’s possibly a Southern thing, I don’t know. But since my mom goes by her middle name, we go by our middle names too.”
However, Elle’s decision not to go by Mary did cause some confusion while she was growing up.
“It was awkward in school when they were calling roll call,” she recalled, “because they’d go, ‘Mary? Mary?’ Kids would be like, ‘There’s no Mary here.’ I’d awkwardly raise my hand, like, ‘Uh, it’s me.’”
READ: Dakota Fanning shares ‘really nice’ birthday gift Tom Cruise sends her every year
As for Dakota, the 31-year-old revealed that it was her father who originally came up with her middle name.
“My first name is Hannah,” she told People in 2004. “So it is Hannah Dakota Fanning. But I have always been called Dakota.”
Regardless of what’s in a name, Dakota and Elle have been able to forge quite the path in Hollywood and are finally starring in their first movie together, “The Nightingale,” a screen adaptation of Kristin Hannah‘s 2015 novel of the same name.
But before they made the decision to sign on for the film, the sisters made a vow to limit their siblings banter on set.
“[Dakota] promised me that she’s not gonna boss me around,” Elle told E! News at the 2026 Golden Globes on Jan. 11. “I’m like, ‘You have to treat me like a fellow actor.'”
Dakota had Elle make a promise of her own, asking her younger sister not to “annoy me too much.”
“The Nightingale” will be the first time the duo plays sisters on screen, with the film centered around two siblings navigating the dangers of a Nazi-occupied France during World War II. The drama is set to hit theaters Feb.12, 2027.
“It’s taken a couple years in the making,” Elle, who will also produce the film with her sister, shared with E!, “but we are finally really doing it this time.”
Dakota Fanning admits that although she’s been fortunate enough to work with many movie stars, she gets more starstruck seeing reality stars like Lisa Vanderpump.
