Jennica MaeLauv’s breakthrough hit “I Like Me Better” has just completed a very long road to the top. After 35 weeks on Billboard‘s Pop Songs chart, it’s finally reached the top 10 — the longest climb to that region in the history of that chart.
“I Like Me Better,” which has also gone platinum and racked up over a billion streams worldwide, is actually Lauv’s second top 10 on that chart. His first was the Cheat Codes/Demi Lovato hit “No Promises,” which he co-wrote under his birth name, Ari Leff. You might think that “Ari Leff” is enough of a distinctive name that he wouldn’t have to have a stage name, but he’s got a good reason for going by the name “Lauv.”
“I mean the stage name — I always wanted it to be something that has meaning to me,” he tells ABC Radio. “So ‘Lauv’ means ‘lion’ in Latvian. My mom’s side of the family’s from Latvia and I would go there every summer growing up. And ‘Ari’ means lion [in Hebrew] [and] I’m a Leo.”
“I didn’t want the name to be random, but yeah…I kinda just wanted something that was like short and sweet that still felt connected to my identity,” he adds.
While Lauv thinks it’s “awesome” that he has family all over Latvia, and he chose a Latvian word for his stage name, he admits that he still can’t speak the language.
“At some point in my life, I gotta learn,” he tells ABC Radio. “My two older sisters, they learned, so I definitely feel kinda like the dumb little brother that doesn’t even know but, at some point, [I will], yeah.”
This fall, Lauv will alternate alternate headlining dates with stints opening for Ed Sheeran on his North American stadium tour.
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