American singer-songwriter Janis Ian had a hit in 1975 with “At Seventeen”, but what was her birth surname?

Janis Ian (born Janis Eddy Fink; April 7, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter who began her writing and recording career at the age of 14, recording her first hit single, "Society's Child", which reached number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1967. She was most commercially successful in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1964, she legally changed her name to Janis Ian, taking her brother Eric's middle name as her new surname.

Her most widely recognized song, "At Seventeen", was released as a single from her 1975 album “Between the Lines”. The album reached number 1 on the Billboard album chart in September 1975, and sold 1.9 million copies in the United States. "At Seventeen" earned Ian the “Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance”, and Grammy nominations for “Record and Song of the Year”. The single reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and has sold over a million copies (as of August 2004).

Born in 1951 in New York City, Janis Ian entered the American folk music scene while still a teenager in the mid-1960s. Most active, musically, in that decade and the 1970s, she has continued recording into the 21st century. She won her second Grammy Award in 2013 for “Best Spoken Word Album”, for her autobiography, “Society's Child”, with a total of ten nominations in eight different categories.

Janis Ian continues to write science fiction stories, to campaign for musicians rights, charitable causes and does a bit of acting and record producing.