Blake Lively wants her new beauty brand to "stand for itself"

Blake - who is married to actor Ryan Reynolds - told Harper's Bazaar: "Brown is my dad's [last] name. My dad took Lively from my mom. I just thought that was really cool."

Despite this, Blake revealed that the name Blake Brown actually appears on her birth certificate.

She said: "I've only ever been called Blake Lively, but Blake Brown was on my birth certificate and it would show up in legal documents.

"It was always an identity that I never fully stepped into and it was the most intimate identity and people don't really know anything about it."

Blake ultimately hopes that her beauty brand will "earn people's respect".

The actress said: "I didn't want to use Lively because I didn't want people to think that I was just trying to cash in a celebrity brand. I wanted it to stand for itself.

"I wanted it to earn people's respect."

Blake recently revealed that she spent seven years "obsessively developing" her new business venture.

The actress said on Instagram: "Ever since I was a kid, through adolescence, early adulthood, motherhood, work, personal life, whenever, wherever, the single most identifiable part about me has always been my personalit- no? Not my personality? Oh... My hair.

"It's my longest companion in life. For 36 years and counting. And like any relationship, it's healthiest when you take good care of each other. To love it well, I've found a system that has worked wonders for me, a hack of sorts through decades of working with the very best people in the industry, and silly amounts of trial and error. I spent 7 years (I know. It toggles between impressive and wtf took so long) obsessively developing every detail of my newest baby, @blakebrownbeauty (sic)"