Born Ginette Raynault in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, she began singing in 1960 and won the talent contest "Les Découvertes de Jean Simon" (Jean Simon's Discoveries). With this success, three clubs in Montreal (Café Caprice, le Café de l'Est and the Café Provincial) offered Reno her first professional contract. Simon suggested she adopt the stage name Reno—a phonetic spelling of her real last name (as pronounced in Canadian French).[1][2][3][4][5]