Ron Artest is Metta World Peace now
In one of the more ridiculous name changes in recent years, the Los Angeles Lakers basketball player Ron Artest is now to be known as Metta World Peace after a court approved the request.
Metta World Peace – this is first name Metta, surname World Peace – was approved his name change in a hearing that lasted less than a minute, reports the Los Angeles Times. The 31 year-old’s publicist Courtney Barnes commented that he’d been seeking a name change for years “but it took many years of research and soul-searching to find a first name that was both personally meaningful and inspirational.” Indeed, World Peace would’ve had his wish approved earlier, but an outstanding parking ticket last month under his previous name meant that he was unable to change it then.
In an official statement, the sports man said: “Changing my name was meant to inspire and bring youth together all around the world. I’m glad that it is now official.” He wasn’t at the hearing himself, with attorney Nahla Rajan representing him; World Peace cited a busy schedule for his no-show – he’ll be appearing on hit US reality show “Dancing With The Stars” on Monday and plans to explain the change further then.
The next step for World Peace now is to obtain a driving license and passport.
Ron Artest.
Ron Artest is out and “Metta World Peace” is in.
While NBA superstar Ron Artest will swap the basketball court for the ballroom floor, joining this season of ‘Dancing with the Stars’ next week, he made a bigger change by switching names.
A Los Angeles court made the change official Friday and Artest is now “Metta World Peace.”
“Metta” is a Buddhist term meaning loving, kindness – an enlightened choice for a player known for his violent basketball brawls.
He joins a long line of famous name changers.
There’s fellow athlete and ‘Dancing’ star Chad Johnson, who decided the 85 on the back of his jersey fit better at the end of his signature and Chad Ochocinco (85 in spanish) was born.
Then there’s Prince, who changed his name to a symbol.
People adapted and simply referred to him as “the artist formerly known as Prince” until he changed it back to plain old Prince again.
And, of course, there’s Sean Combs, whose had nearly as many names as platinum records, starting with Puff Daddy then to Puffy to P Diddy.
Cassius Clay famously changed his name to Muhammad Ali, and then became one of the greatest boxers of all time.
Johnny Cougar slowly worked his way back to his real name to John Cougar Mellencamp and then just John Mellencamp.
A brief hearing at Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday morning made it official — Ron Artest has changed his name to Metta World Peace, according to ESPN.
According to Artest’s publicist, Courtney Barnes, the new ‘Dancing With the Stars’ contestant was not present for the ruling, but his attorney, Nahla Rajan, represented her client in front of commissioner Matthew C. St. George.
“[Rajan] walked up, the judge said: ‘We understand he wants to change his name and he wants to do so for personal reasons,’ and it was granted” – Barnes said. “That was it. It was that quick.”
Artest’s initial request to change his name last month was delayed because of a failure to pay an outstanding parking ticket.
“As soon as we found out about it from the previous hearing, once we were able to track down the ticket, it was immediately taken care of” – Barnes said.
Artest’s 8-year-old daughter, Diamond, also plans to change her surname from Artest to World Peace now that her father’s name change has become official.
“This process needed to go through [Friday] and be legal before there would be any pursuit of that” – Barnes said.
“Metta is going to be the first name and it means like friendship, love and kindness” – Artest told Stephen A. Smith on 710 ESPNLA earlier this month. “World Peace is going to be the last name, so everybody can get ready to buy their World Peace jerseys.”
Artest told Yahoo! Sports he plans to wear No. 70 next season, but the NBA has rules that prevent players from switching their uniform number from year to year. The deadline for a player to change his number is in early March to have it go into effect for the next season and once a number is changed, it has to be worn for five seasons with that team before a player is allowed to change it – unless he is traded to a new team or leaves as a free agent.
Artest wore No. 37 after signing on as a free agent with the Lakers in 2009-10 and did switch to No. 15 last season. It’s not clear what he had to do to accomplish that. The uniform rule does not come with any stipulations for a name change, however.