Macaulay Culkin confirms he changed his legal name 6 years ago

Despite a career in Hollywood spanning 40 years, Macaulay Culkin has to remind his fans of his “real name.”

Appearing at an event in Long Beach, California, on Saturday to celebrate his starring role in the holiday classic “Home Alone,” the actor acknowledged that he had fulfilled a surprising 2018 promise.

“My name is Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin,” he told the crowd, according to People.

While Culkin’s comment may be disconcerting to some fans, it’s actually a nod to his November 2018 appearance on “The Tonight Show,” in which the actor announced plans to ditch his old middle name, Carson, for a different option.

“I felt like I should probably fix my name a little bit,” Culkin told host Jimmy Fallon at the time. “We’ve narrowed it down to five options.”

Although some may have assumed Culkin was joking, he offered his fans the opportunity to share their opinions through an online survey on his now-defunct lifestyle website. On Christmas Day of that year, he announced the results of the survey on X, formerly Twitter.

“You voted and the winner is clear. In 2019 my new legal name will be: Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin,” he wrote. “Sounds good (if you like my name).”

Rodin Eckenroth via Getty Images

During his appearance in Long Beach on Saturday, Culkin revealed some of the other options, which included “The McRib is Back” and “Kieran,” the latter of which is a nod to his brother, “Succession” actor Kieran Culkin.

“Macaulay Kieran Culkin. That would be great. I love my brother. Between him and I, we have exactly one Oscar,” he joked, alluding to his brother’s Academy Award-winning performance in “A Real Pain.”

He went on to note, “If someone comes up to me at the airport and says, ‘Excuse me, are you Macaulay Culkin?’ I can say, ‘Well, Macaulay Culkin is my middle name.'”

Culkin has been in the midst of a publicity campaign in recent weeks to commemorate the 35th anniversary of “Home Alone,” which premiered in the United States on Nov. 16, 1990. He also appears in “John Candy: I ​​Like Me,” the new Amazon Prime Video documentary about his late “Uncle Buck” co-star John Candy.

At Saturday’s event, Culkin also shared that his children Dakota, 4, and Carson, 3, still haven’t realized that Kevin McAllister, the young protagonist of “Home Alone,” is played by their father.

“They have no idea I’m Kevin,” he said before noting that he hopes to “maintain that illusion as long as possible.”