Who would have thought that this man has more than 2,000 middle names — earning him a world record?
Laurence Watkins from New Zealand has officially set the Guinness World Record for having the longest personal name, consisting of 2,253 unique words.
Laurence said he has always been fascinated by Guinness World Records and wanted to be part of something extraordinary. “I wanted to join the group of people who achieve amazing things. I studied many record categories before deciding to go for the longest name,” he explained.
His middle names come from various cultures and include words such as love, math, fictional characters like Sherlock, ancient deities such as Dionysus, and even foods like tofu.
Initially, his application to register the name was rejected by the chief registrar, but he later won approval after taking the case to the New Zealand High Court. Fortunately for him, the judge ruled in his favor.
However, Laurence admitted that having such a long name comes with its own challenges — from filling out forms to his wedding ceremony, which took over 20 minutes just to pronounce his entire name.
“My favorite middle name is AZ2000 — it means I have names from A to Z, and there are 2,000 of them,” he said with a laugh.
