What’s in a name? When you’re a 41-year-old woman from Hartlepool, England, the answer is 161 words, including “Stereo”, “Coalition”, “Feedback” and “Ben”.
According to a BBC News report, Dawn McManus, 41, has legally changed her name to this:
Red Wacky League Antlez Broke the Stereo Neon Tide Bring Back Honesty Coalition Feedback Hand of Aces Keep Going Captain Let’s Pretend Lost State of Dance Paper Taxis Lunar Road Up Down Strange All and I Neon Sheep Eve Hornby Faye Bradley AJ Wilde Michael Rice Dion Watts Matthew Appleyard John Ashurst Lauren Swales Zoe Angus Jaspreet Singh Emma Matthews Nicola Brown Leanne Pickering Victoria Davies Rachel Burnside Gil Parker Freya Watson Alisha Watts James Pearson Jacob Sotheran Darley Beth Lowery Jasmine Hewitt Chloe Gibson Molly Farquhar Lewis Murphy Abbie Coulson Nick Davies Harvey Parker Kyran Williamson Michael Anderson Bethany Murray Sophie Hamilton Amy Wilkins Emma Simpson Liam Wales Jacob Bartram Alex Hooks Rebecca Miller Caitlin Miller Sean McCloskey Dominic Parker Abbey Sharpe Elena Larkin Rebecca Simpson Nick Dixon Abbie Farrelly Liam Grieves Casey Smith Liam Downing Ben Wignall Elizabeth Hann Danielle Walker Lauren Glen James Johnson Ben Ervine Kate Burton James Hudson Daniel Mayes Matthew Kitching Josh Bennett Evolution Dreams
As even the former Ms. McManus will acknowledge, it’s basically just a big jumble of nonsense between the words “Red” and “Dreams” — although that’s really the point. She changed her name, she said, to draw attention to her charity, Red Dreams, which supports young people who want to pursue creative careers. “We have processed a number of crazy name changes to date, but this is the longest one on record,” said Tina Clough, spokesperson for The Legal Deed Poll Service, which handles name change requests in England.
There are lots of practical considerations to ponder about having a 161 word long name, as the BBC notes:
“Ms Dreams said she did not know how the new name would fit on her passport or bank card but hoped she would be allowed to use initials or an abbreviated version.”
That does looks like a problem, unless her card provider has some ingenious way of printing infinitesimally small font on the card.
But, aside from everyday annoyances, if she wants to keep what’s possibly one of the world’s longest names, she’d better be ready to take on challengers.
A Scotland man formerly known as Nicholas Usansky changed his name via Deed Poll to “Barnaby Marmaduke Aloysius Benjy Cobweb Dartagnan Egbert Felix Gaspar Humbert Ignatius Jayden Kasper Leroy Maximilian Neddy Obiajulu Pepin Quilliam Rosencrantz Sexton Teddy Upwood Vivatma Wayland Xylon Yardley Zachary Usansky” in January, in order to claim the title of world’s longest name for a living person. And in a post-record interview, he indicated that he’d be able to go even longer.
“There’s no point in having a really wacky name like that and not having the longest in the world,” he told The Scottish Sun at the time. We have to admit, he has a point there.
(More: Guinness World Record Day: 10 Odd, Newly-Shattered Records)