Former WWE Superstar Indi Hartwell used a unique method to create her ring name.
In a recent interview on the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, former WWE Superstar Indi Hartwell shared the unusual way she came up with her ring name. Drawing inspiration from pop star Iggy Azalea, who used a similar approach, Hartwell revealed she followed the “porn star method” to create her name.
“I used the porn star method. Do you know who Iggy Azalea is? So this was before I started wrestling. I’m a big fan of her, and that’s how she got her name. So then me and my friend were just coming up with our porn star name, and it was like your dog name plus your street name.
“Indi Hartwell was my friend’s dog name and street name. Then years later, when it came time for me to wrestle, the promoter was like, What name do you want to be? And I was like, I don’t know, Indi Hartwell? It’s a good name, isn’t it? There’s no other Indi’s in wrestling that I know of, but also the whole like Indi Hartwell, indie wrestling, I’m Indi Wrestling. So it all worked out very well.”
Indi Hartwell on how she held onto her name after leaving WWE
WWE released Indi Hartwell from her contract in November 2024. A few weeks ago, during the TNA Rebellion pay-per-view, it was announced that Hartwell had joined TNA’s Knockouts division. Since her release, she has been able to retain her wrestling name. She has also competed for a few independent promotions with the same name.
Hartwell reflected on how she was able to keep her name following her released from WWE. “I just asked. I’ve had this name my whole wrestling career. When you start wrestling at live events, they make you wrestle under your real name. I wrestled under my real name for a bit, and I think I had a dark match at NXT, and I just asked Road Dogg, ‘Can I be Indi Hartwell?’ ‘Yeah, I’ll ask. Why not.’ They let me be Indi Hartwell for the dark match.”
“It kind of kept going and I got on TV with it. I got my action figure with that name and got in the game with that name. When NXT 2.0 started, they went through that whole thing where you can’t have your real name or a name they don’t own, so they gave me the option to change my name or sell it to them. I sold it to them. It was always in the back of my mind, ‘If I get released, what name am I going to be?’ That’s a big deal to me. When I got the call that I was being released, they said, ‘You’re released.’ ‘Okay, cool. So, I sold my name to the company. Is there any way I could get that back?’ We got it all figured out and I got the rights and stuff to it. I’m very lucky.”
Read More: Indi Hartwell Reveals How She Got To Keep Her WWE Name After Being Released
