From winning The Traitors to an impressive run on Dancing with the Stars, it’s been a banner year for Dylan Efron — whose real first name, it turns out, is not actually Dylan at all.
During Efron’s Dec. 11 appearance on E!’s Hot Goss alongside his Traitors castmate Rob Mariano (aka Boston Rob), the pair was asked to prove their closeness by answering each other’s middle name. Rob correctly said Dylan was, in fact, Efron’s middle name. “Nicholas Dylan,” he said.
However, Efron said he was only “half right” because he actually has a second middle name. “Nicholas is axed off,” he explained — and “because it’s my first name, everything gets bumped up.” (His other middle name, FYI, is Harrison.)
While this may be new info to his burgeoning fandom, Efron has been going by Dylan for, well… ever. As he told BroBible in 2021, his mom was a “big hippie” who loved Bob Dylan, so he ended up being called Dylan growing up. In fact, the moniker was used so widely in the Efron household that he hardly knew anything else. “There was a time in first grade when I had to write out Nicholas, and I didn’t know how,” he said. “I still remember being so embarrassed because I didn’t even know how to spell my own name.”
Dylan’s Next Steps
After a year of healthy competition on The Traitors and Dancing with the Stars, Efron’s next project is fittingly titled Everything’s a Competition. In the new YouTube series, he and Rob — playing off their friendly rivalry from The Traitors — embark upon unexpected challenges, from blindfolded golf to lawn bowling.
Of course, while Efron’s primarily appeared in unscripted settings, he hasn’t ruled out acting in the future. “I have so much respect for what my brother does, and I’m not going to play Ted Bundy,” he told Cosmopolitan earlier this year, referring to his brother Zac Efron’s turn in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile. But he continued, “I think if there are roles that are similar to who I am, I could do a movie. I’ve always kept that option open.”
He’s also a noted romantasy stan, and told Page Six that he’d be extremely down to star in the Fourth Wing TV series. “Hell yeah, sign me up,” he said. Truly a jack (or Dylan… or Nicholas) of all trades!
