His nickname, "Shep," was given to him by friends when he first became a nationally known civil rights leader, and was a reference to a politician from the Soviet Union, Dmitri Shepilov, who, while Shepilov was the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, participated in a plot to oust Soviet leader '
Nikita Khrushchev in 1957. Barry readily adopted the nickname, and even took the full last name as his own middle name (Barry had not been given a middle name on his birth certificate), thereafter being known as Marion Shepilov Barry, Jr.