Rob McElhenney Has Sassy Defense of Name Change

Rob McElhenney took exactly one minute to defend his name change to Rob Mac this week because explaining his name has taken up too much time already. "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," he said in a video posted to X on Tuesday, per NBC News. "More importantly, it means thousands of you have had minutes of your life stolen by me because of my last name." Going by a shorter "stage name" is just simpler, he said. Sure, "there's heritage" attached to his family name but, as McElhenney (pronounced mackle-henny) pointed out, "it's not even really our f---ing name."

The creator of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and co-owner of Wrexham AFC told People there's been six or seven spellings of McElhenney over the centuries. In the video, he notes his great-great-grandmother went by McIllhenny. "The current [name] was just given to my ancestor by a government official who decided that this was now the spelling," he said. That, and the continued support of his family, who "loves me regardless of how many syllables I have," contributed to his decision to "keep it simple and try Rob Mac," which "most people already call me," he said. "Is it kind of douchey? Sure," he joked. But "let's see how it goes." (A critic argues It's Always Sunny might be the "funniest" sitcom ever.)