What to Know
It’s been seven years since Macaulay Culkin first joked about changing his middle name to “Macaulay Culkin,” and as it turns out, it was never really a joke. The Home Alone star has confirmed that he did, in fact, legally change his name — and no, he hasn’t changed it back in the years since.
If you’ve been following along, you know that the lore behind this bit goes way back, and apparently, it is something that the actor is extremely committed to.
It All Started on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
As Macaulay told Jimmy during a 2018 appearance on the late night show, he got the idea to change his middle name, which was Carson at the time, after looking at his passport and realizing he wanted to “spruce up” his name.
He narrowed it down to five options, and directed fans to his website, Bunny Ears, to vote on which one he should choose. The options were pretty wide ranging — everything from Kieran (the name of his brother, Succession star Kieran Culkin) to The McRib Is Back were listed as potential new middle names.
Then, Macaulay let fans vote on his new middle name.
In the post on his website, Macaulay explained why he wanted to change his middle name in the first place.
“My middle name is something dumb,” he wrote. “Larry? Orange? Honestly, I can’t even remember it. So I asked you all to send in some better options so I can go down to the court house and explain to a judge why I need to change my middle name to something cool.”
Fans had until Christmas Eve that year to vote, and on Christmas Day, Macaulay shared a post on X (which was still called Twitter at that point) with the news, writing, “Merry Christmas to me, from all of you! My new middle name has been chosen. You voted and the winner is clear. In 2019 my new legal name will be: Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin. It has a nice ring to it (if you like my name).”
He actually did change it — and he hasn’t changed it back.
As People reported, Macaulay confirmed that he actually did change his name during an event called A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin over the weekend.
“The final vote was Macaulay Culkin,” he said. “So my name is Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin. If somebody comes up to me at the airport and says, ‘Excuse me, are you Macaulay Culkin?’ I can say, ‘Well, Macaulay Culkin is my middle name.'”
It is pretty funny — and we have to give him props for sticking to the bit, even though everyone would have understood if he changed his middle name back to something a bit less ridiculous (or at least, shorter). He’s playing the long game with this joke, and it seems to be paying off so far.
