Raquel Welch | Jo Raquel Tejada

Raquel Welch was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in California. She was born with the name Jo Raquel Tejada. Raquel Welch studied ballet when she was a child. At the age of 14, Raquel Welch won a beauty contest. She shared that once upon a time, her schoolmates and her teacher called her by her first name Jo. She became known to everybody as Jo, but she did not like it.

When her mother Josephine found out about it, she went to the school and asked them to call her Raquel. Though she named her daughter Jo after herself, she realized that it wasn’t the identity she was going for. Ever since then, our beloved celebrity has been known as just Raquel. The actress is actually part Latina and though she isn’t a proficient Spanish speaker, Welch still credits her Hispanic blood for making her the person who she is today.