Early life. Gwen Renée Stefani was born on October 3, 1969, in Fullerton, California, and raised Roman Catholic in nearby Anaheim, California. She was named after a stewardess in the 1968 novel Airport, and her middle name, Renée, comes from The Four Tops’ 1968 cover of The Left Banke’s 1966 song “Walk Away Renée”. Her father, Dennis Stefani, is Italian-American and worked as a Yamaha …