Googoosh was born as Faegheh Atashin on 5 May 1950, in Capital, to Azerbaijani parents who emigrated from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union. She was quickly called “Googoosh”, an Armenian name normally exclusively used for boys but which became her stage name. In an interview she noted that she was called Googoosh from a very early age; in her birth certificate however her birth name Faegheh is recorded.