is a name that just about anyone with even the smallest bit of interest in Formula One will know. The Mercedes supremo is one of the most powerful figures in Formula One and motorsport after transforming the team from midfield marvels to multiple championship winners.

But earlier in his life, the Austrian was addressed by a completely different name - one that the 53-year-old chief admitted has no relevance to his cultural heritage whatsoever.

Wolff has been the cornerstone of success for the Silver Arrows in Formula 1 since taking charge of the team as executive director in 2013.

Until 2020, Mercedes dominated the sport's turbo-hybrid era and that was no easy feat, as well as balancing Lewis Hamilton and as team-mates during a team of seven consecutive world championship titles.

Now he is preparing to lead the Brackley team into a new era with George Russell and 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli. But there's a good chance that neither of his current drivers know what his actual name is, only addressing him by his nickname 'Toto'.

His full name is Torger Christian Wolff, but Wolff decided to make it known that he'd rather be called Toto, which is easier to pronounce than Torger.

As for his given name, he insisted he has no idea why he was given a Nordic moniker by his parents.

"My mother was Polish and fled Poland with her parents in the late 1960s, from the Communists, and met my father, who was a Romanian, in Vienna, and they got together," he expained back in 2016.

"So my background is actually Polish-Romanian. For whatever bizarre reason, they gave me this Norwegian name [Torger] which actually means Thor's javelin."

He added: "But actually, Toto is the opposite. It's the name of a dog from The Wizard of Oz."

Of course, the usual jokes have followed from adopting Toto as his first name. Former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone used to remind him that he shares the name of a toilet product:

"Yes, when we're in Japan for the racing I regularly get a text message from Bernie saying 'every time I'm on the loo p***ing, I think about you'," Wolff said.

His friendly rival, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, teased the Mercedes chief and suggested using his 'real name', referring to his middle name.

"He's called Christian and he had to change his name. He's got a good name, his real name," Horner said at the United States Grand Prix in 2021.

People may joke about his name, but Wolff's strong voice is taken seriously in the sport. Whether he is named Toto or Torger, that is unlikely to change anytime soon.