James Roday Rodriguez

Rodriguez was born in San Antonio, Texas, as James David Rodriguez.^[1] He attended Taft High School in San Antonio.^[3] His father, Jaime "Jim" Rodriguez, is of Mexican descent, and his mother, Deborah Collins, is of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. Rodriguez's father is a retired Air Force Master Sergeant and used to be the regional catering manager of Taco Cabana.^[4][5]

At New York University's Experimental Theatre Wing, Rodriguez studied theatre and earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts.^[6] At the age of 22, he selected the professional name James Roday. In a July 2020 interview, Rodriguez explained the decision was mainly driven by producers and casting directors feeling his Caucasian appearance clashed with his Spanish-Latino family name. The characters he read for up until that point either were not written with a Latino background or required a non-white "Mexican" appearance. In order to book his first job, he legally changed his middle name, David, to Roday (from an Anton Chekhov play), and omitted Rodriguez from his screen name. In the same interview, he stated regret that he "sold out my heritage in about 15 seconds" and announced that going forward he was going to use his full legal name of James Roday Rodriguez.^[7]