What's in a name? A lot, apparently.
To be fair, a name represents a lot of things: a person's identity, the family they originate from, and possibly even some of the cultural and historical background of that family.
But when you're famous and you have a name that's complicated to say or spell, the marketing can be a nightmare.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Welcome to Wrexham's Rob McElhenney recently released a public statement on Twitter (X) and other social media platforms, claiming that he will be changing his name and explaining why.
And he admits that his primary reason for changing his name from "Rob McElhenney" to "Rob Mac" is "kinda douchey."
"Yes, I'm shortening my name to 'Rob Mac.' Mostly a stage name, but I digress."
"Is it kinda douchey? Sure."
"But the amount of time that I have wasted trying to get people to either say or spell my name correctly is literally days of my life. Trust me, I added it up."
"More importantly, it means thousands of you have had minutes of your life stolen by me because of my last name."
The actor went on to explain that his family's last name was actually not ... his family's last name. Throughout history, the name had been misspelled on many documents, and "McElhenney" was the spelling they landed on when a government official decided it was the name they would go with.
So while he wants to remain connected to his family, the actor believes there are other ways to do that.
You can watch the video here:
Reactions to the video included skeptical, if not enraged, fans.
The commentary continued, with fans being resoundingly negative about McElhenney's (Mac's?) choices.
And it appears that Rob McElhenney's family are, understandably, not too happy about his choices, either.
McElhenney's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia costar and now wife, who he shares two teenage children with, shared that his family of three is not the most excited about the change.
The actress confided:
"The kids are really not happy about it, because they have that last name. And so do I, legally!"
Especially if the children were younger, there could be all kinds of hurdles with travel and medical care if everyone's last names did not match. Now that they're in their teens, it's not as big of an issue, but there could still be a concern regarding their identity that they'd have to face.
McElhenney initially did this because his company More Better Productions, which houses Welcome to Wrexham, is going international, and truth be told, his name is even harder for some people to pronounce in countries across the pond.
But just because this makes sense from a marketing standpoint does not necessarily mean that everyone's going to love the idea. Quite frankly, they'll need some time to get used to it.
