{"id":32174,"date":"2025-07-02T08:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T08:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/32174\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T08:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T08:58:10","slug":"rob-mcelhenney-of-its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-mcelhenney-explains-name-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/32174\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob McElhenney of \u2018Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia\u2019 McElhenney explains name change"},"content":{"rendered":"

He\u2019s paying the troll toll.<\/p>\n

Creator and star of \u201cIt\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia\u201d Rob McElhenney opened up in a snarky monologue about changing his legal name to \u201cRob Mac\u201d \u2014 a move that perplexed many fans. <\/p>\n

Mac, 48, announced the shocking change to his government name<\/a> last week and is letting fans know that the name, which \u201cmost people\u201d already use, is officially here to stay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to dedicate exactly one minute to this,\u201d an apparently exasperated Mac started in a video shared online<\/a>. \u201cYes, I\u2019m shortening my name to \u2018Rob Mac.\u2019 Mostly a stage name, but I digress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs 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,\u201d the Philly favorite said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore importantly it means thousands of you have had minutes of your life stolen by me because of my last name, including this one,\u201d Mac joked.<\/p>\n

The bartender turned soccer club owner further justified the syllable-snipping by sharing his own family tree\u2019s generational spelling inconsistencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and I all share [the name] and I love them and I want to stay connected.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s heritage, except, it\u2019s not even really our f\u2013king name,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n

\"RobRob Mac with pal and Wrexham FC co-owner Ryan Reynolds. Action Images via Reuters<\/p>\n

Mac then pointed to government documents that show spellings of \u201cMcElhennie\u201d and family pics that spell the name \u201cMcIllhenny.\u201d<\/p>\n

The star emphasized his family was supportive of the move and that he hoped fans could focus on the \u201cmany things going on in the world,\u201d other than his name change.<\/p>\n

Mac\u2019s familial reassurances come after wife and co-star Kaitlin Olson, 49, expressed skepticism about his then-proposed reidentification in an interview with Variety<\/a> back in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids are really not happy about it, because they have that last name. And so do I, legally!,\u201d she dished to the outlet.<\/p>\n

\"TheRob Mac (center left) with the core cast of \u201cIt\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia\u201d including wife Kaitlin Olson (far right).<\/p>\n

To drive home the \u201csilly\u201d preoccupation with his name change, Mac made a list of famous entertainers who went by \u201cstage names\u201d including John Wayne, Gene Wilder, Gregory Peck, Michael Caine, Lady Gaga, Meatloaf, Judy Garland, Sting, and Mark Twain.<\/p>\n

Mac told Variety that his expanding business empire, \u201cMore Better Industries,\u201d is a major motivating factor for shortening his name.<\/p>\n

The 17th season of \u201cIt\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia\u201d premieres on July 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He\u2019s paying the troll toll. Creator and star of \u201cIt\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia\u201d Rob McElhenney opened up…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,569,1144,171,19575,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-32174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-celebrity-couples","10":"tag-comedy","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia","13":"tag-pa","14":"tag-pennsylvania","15":"tag-philadelphia","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114782817821367513","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}