She was born in Horsham, Victoria, Australia. She is the daughter of Margaret, a medical receptionist, and Barry Rogers. Her father died when she was nine. She grew up in Grovedale, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria. She modelled for print and TV commercials as a child. In 1988, at the age of 15, Rogers adopted the name Portia de Rossi, by which she remains best known; in 2005, she explained that she wanted to reinvent herself, using the given name of Portia, a character from William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" and an Italian last name.