A man legally changed his name to The Scary Guy after witnessing youth violence, hoping to grab kids' attention and teach them non-violence. The judge was skeptical but amused, the media went wild, and the name change was approved. He saw it as a turning point for his mission to work with children.
So you want to change your name to The Scary Guy? I said, yeah. I started to read about and see in the news kids killing each other over their differences and all this negative behavior and bullying and violence going on in schools. And I said, my God, they're doing exactly what adults are doing to each other. So I thought, well, I'm going to go out and I'm going to work with them and tell them that they don't have to be like this anymore. I decided to change my name to The Scary Guy because that's who I used to be. I want to change my ways. Went down, filed with the courthouse, and when they do that, they publish it in the newspaper, see? And when they found out that I was changing my name to The Scary Guy, the media went ballistic. But the courtroom was full. There were 300 people in there. The judge calls me up to the bench and she says, "So you want to change your name to The Scary Guy?" I said, "Yeah." She said, "Okay, well, are you trying to evade or elude any debtors or creditors?" I said, "No. Look at me, Judge. I can't hide." And of course she laughed, and you know judges, they don't like to laugh. They keep it pretty serious. And so she said, "That's the most unusual name change I've ever heard in my life, and I'm going to go ahead and grant it." And she slammed the gavel down. Well, that's when my life changed.
