By Jenni McKnight
Kaitlin Olson and Rob McElhenney’s two children are “not happy” with their dad after he legally changed his name.
The It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star, 48, confirmed on June 27 that he officially filed legal documents in Los Angeles to change his name to “Rob Mac” after teasing his new moniker in May.
Name change
Rob told Variety at the time: “As our business and our storytelling is expanding into other regions of the world and other languages in which my name is even harder to pronounce, I’m just going by Rob Mac.”
However, Kaitlin revealed in the same interview that their children, Axel Lee, 14, and Leo Grey, 13, disagreed with his decision to change his last name.
“The kids are really not happy about it, because they have that last name,” the 49-year-old actress said. “And so do I, legally!”
Rob defended his decision to legally change his name in a video he shared to X on July 1 after he received criticism from some fans.
“I’m going to dedicate exactly one minute to this. Start the clock. Yes, I’m shortening my name to Rob Mac,” he began.
“Mostly a stage name, but I digress. Is it kind of 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. Trust me, I added it up.
“More importantly, it means thousands of you have had minutes of your life stolen by me because of my last name.”
Rob went on to explain that even though “McElhenney” is a family name, it doesn’t hold as much meaning as it once did.
“It’s a family name, my grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and I all share it, and I love them, and I want to stay connected,” he continued.
“Except, it’s not even really our [expletive] name. Not only have many generations changed its spelling, the current one was just given to my ancestor by a government official who decided that this was now the spelling.”
Rob added: “Times have changed and most people already call me Rob Mac anyway. My family knows me and loves me regardless of how many syllables I have, and that’s the only thing that I really care about.
“There are so many things going on in the world and this is a silly one to continue to waste your time with. Honestly, call me whatever you want. Marion, Jerome, Archibald, Eric, Maurice, Stephanie, Francis, Marvin, Gordon, or Sam,” he quipped. “But maybe we just keep it simple and try Rob Mac. Let’s see how it goes.”
According to Entertainment Weekly, Rob will be credited as Rob Mac in projects moving forward.