Man gets in Guinness Book of World Records for having the longest name in the world
A man with the world's longest name has been credited in the Guinness Book of World Records due to his absolute mouthful of a title - and even that's an understatement to call it.
Born Laurence Gregory Watkins, the man from New Zealand decided to change his name via Deed Poll on 8 March, 1990 and officially registered his mammoth label with the Department of Justice, leaving him with a whopping 2,310 first names and one family name... and we've got so many questions.
Why? What do his friend's call him? Is he married? If so, what did the priest say at his wedding? How does he not run out of room when filling in his passport? Can he even remember his own name?
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Watkins says that when deciding what to go for as his new moniker, he chose Christian names that hold significance to him and his family, stating on his website that he is 'proud to be in the Guinness Book of World Records as the individual with the longest name'.
Digging around on his website, laurencewatkins.com, Watkins has written: 'I may have the longest name in the world, but to you, my family and my friends, I’m still Laurence Watkins.
'Although, I’m honoured to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for my Christian names, as each has profound meaning to me.'
Laurence's site also displays a scanned-in copy of his birth certificate, showing his original name and names of his birth parents including father, Laurence Sommerville Watkins.
Below this is the Deed Poll document as signed by the Department of Justice and Watkins himself, which says that from the date of signature, Watkins would be referred to by his incredibly long self-chosen title.
'But what is this 2,310-word-long name?' you're probably asking yourself. Well, he's scanned in a copy of that too, spanning a rather impressive six pages to fit the entire thing on.
Take a look for yourself:
We're not going to type it out because, quite frankly, we've got better things to do.
But what we will do is tell you some of our personal favourites from his hefty handle, including; 'Cadog', 'Hannibal', 'Cherry', 'Napoleon', 'Narcissus' and 'Sherlock'.
However, it doesn't take a Sherlock to realise that Laurence is pretty besotted with his gargantuan title, even calling himself @names2310 on Twitter and donning his account with a blue tick with the help of the app's verification subscription service, Twitter Blue.
God help the person who has to carve his tombstone when the time eventually comes - they're going to have some seriously sore hands.
Topics: Guinness World Record, Weird
Harley Young