NFL players have a way of becoming household names. After all, every weekend they enter our TV screens and put on entertaining performances that we all love to watch.
But some of the players—even the most popular guys in the league—who are in the NFL nowadays may not be exactly who they appear.
There are a number of them that aren’t even using their real names. Some guys use their middle names instead of a first name for whatever reason. Then, there are the players who have names that have seemingly spawned out of nowhere cough cough, I am looking at you Eli Manning.
Or should I say, Elisha.
Anyway… Let’s have a look at 12 NFL players today—who have jumped ship on their given names and taken on a whole new identity!
Julio Jones
There may be no more egregious offender on this list than the man that you all know at home as Julio Jones.
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Because—while his last name is Jones—that is right where the legitimacy to his NFL ‘stage name’ stops.
‘Julio’ was born Quintorris Lopez Jones—but there are probably very few people out there who know him as that. Or reference him by that name.
That is because—he has been Julio for pretty much as long as he has been in the public spotlight, which, considering the fact that he practically reached urban mythological status while growing up in Foley, Alabama, for his insane athleticism.
In fact, the name dates all the way back to the seventh grade, when his loving mother, who has an extravagant name herself: Queen Marvin, gave him the nickname.
Which—was peculiar—because Julio is historically a Latino name, a heritage that Jones apparently does not have an ounce of blood from.
But nevertheless, she slapped it on him—and it just sort of stuck!
And—if you ask me… I think it was a good thing for the star wide receiver… He has come out publicly and said that he does like his birth name, as it means ‘gladiator,’ but I just have this sinking suspicion that “Touchdown! Quintorris Lopez Jones!” does not have quite the ring to it that Julio Jones does.
“Julio” – if that’s what we are going to call him by – is not the only star wide receiver in the league that goes by a moniker that is seemingly completely unrelated to their given name.
Not by a long shot.
Just ask T.Y. Hilton, Deebo Samuel, and Juju Smith-Schuster! (Eugene Marquis Hilton)
T.Y. Hilton
I am partially convinced that part of being a great wide receiver is going by one of these crazy pseudonyms.
Just like “Touchdown Quintorris!” sounds funny to the ear—so does “Eugene Marquis Hilton scores!” But that’s exactly what you would hear if the first person on that list of wideouts went by his real name.
Yup. You got that right… T.Y. Hilton real name is Eugene Marquis. For those keeping score at home, no, there is CLEARLY not a ‘T’ nor a ‘Y’ in that name!!!
What is interesting about Hilton, though, is that for a little while—no one really knew the backstory to him going by T.Y.
That was, until Mike Beas, a reporter from The Republic—an area paper in Columbus, Indiana, caught up with Hilton after he had delivered a key performance during his rookie season in 2012.
When prompted, Hilton explained: “My daddy’s name is Tyrone, so ever since I was little, everyone has just used the first two letters of that.”
Regarding the periods in T.Y. – and their origin story… Hilton himself apparently did not have a clue. He conjectured that at some point either Tyrone or Hilton’s mom, Cora, figured it was a nice accent to the name and threw ‘em in there!
Juju Smith-Schuster
Then, you have Juju Smith-Schuster, who you may or may not know was born with the simplest given name of all time. John Smith.
Yawn!
Apparently, he was not John for long though. Reports say that he had an Aunt, who when Juju was just six months old started calling him Choo-choo because he used to play with toy trains a lot—and that sort of just melted into ‘Juju.’
Juju, however, was born LONG before his hyphenated surname was! For the first 18 years of his life, Juju only had one last name. Smith. And while he always wanted to change his name to Schuster, his stepfather’s last name, his biological father would not allow him to do so.
But once he turned 18, Juju was free to do what he wanted—and thus Juju Smith-Schuster was born! And announcers all over the country’s job—immediately became just a little bit more challenging!
Deebo Samuel
Deebo Samuel, on the other hand, well—that is not family heirloom in the way that T.Y. was… Nor does it have any sort of phonetic relationship to his nickname the way Juju took the soft ‘juh’ sound from John for his nickname…
The 49ers’ second-round draft pick in the 2019 NFL draft, Deebo Samuel, was actually born Tyshun Samuel, he explained to The 49ers Insider Podcast in May of that year following his selection.
“Deebo” was the neighborhood bully from the 1995 movie “Friday,” which Samuel said he has watched about upwards of a thousand plus times!
“It all came from when I was a little kid,” said Samuel, who was born just a year after the movie premiered. “My father said I used to take stuff and bully kids when I was little, so he gave me the nickname ‘Deebo.’
He continued to explain that at pretty much every stop along the way growing up, especially from high school to college, he thought that ‘Deebo’ was going to go away and that people would start calling him by his birth name, Tyshun.
But that moment never came. And now that he has firmly established himself in the NFL as Deebo—I don’t think that we will see a change coming anytime soon!
Now, just because he expected it to go away—doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like Deebo. In fact, he admitted it is ‘kind of a cool name.’ And based on the way he has looked on the field during his first couple of NFL seasons, prepare to hear that name ‘Deebo’ in the airwaves for some time to come!
Budda Baker
Not too dissimilarly—Arizona Cardinals defensive back Budda Baker, who is widely renowned for not only being a solid football player but also for having one of the coolest names in the NFL—ALSO goes by a name that has no relation to his birth name.
Budda—was actually born Bishard Baker, but that did not last long!
When he was just a baby, his mother, Michelle, thought that he resembled a little Buddha doll. And thus, the name stuck—he just dropped the H somewhere along the way, a decision I fully support—because really that H just seems unnecessary!
Baker has really leaned into the whole ‘Budda’ thing now too—and doesn’t like to be called Bishard nowadays.
Dak Prescott
“Dak”—was actually born Rayne, and yes you say it like ‘rain,’ Dakota Prescott.
And according to a piece he did with the Dallas Morning News he was never into being called Rayne.
“Just from the get-go. Immediate rejection. When I started off school, they would always call me Rayne [RAINY] or Rayne [RYE-KNEE] or something — they’d (be) like, ‘This is a girl’s name,’ so I just always went by Dakota, but I was given Dak by birth, so my family’s always called me Dak,”
Now that he has gotten older, Dak explained, he feels that he has ‘grown into’ his given name. He went as far as to suggest that one day he might start going by Rayne Dakota and ‘skip the last name.’
As much as I appreciate the growth aspect and everything—I don’t know that Rayne Dakota is really a QB 1 name, to be honest.
It sounds a little bit more like a stage name for a club dancer, but hey, who am I to judge the 40 million-dollar-a-year man?!
Dak is not the only NFL quarterback that uses their middle name—or some variation of it instead of their given first name. In fact, there are quite a few notable quarterbacks that made the audible!
Matt Stafford
Longtime Lions quarterback—who is now with the Los Angeles Rams, Matt Stafford, was actually born John Matthew Stafford.
There isn’t much out there as to what went into his decision to forgo the name, John, so it was likely a choice made very early on when he was a child.
It is worth noting though—it is rumored that Stafford doesn’t actually even like being called Matt, which nearly every Sports Caster in America defaults to, instead, his family calls him Matthew!
Deshaun Watson
In the younger generation of quarterbacks we have seen climbing the ranks in recent years, there is actually another ‘middle namer’ that might surprise you. Deshaun Watson.
Deshaun Watson’s birth name is actually Derrick Deshaun Watson! I’ll be honest—this one really caught me off guard. You almost never even hear his ties to the name ‘Derrick’ mentioned, which again, might be a good thing.
Derrick Watson sounds like a run-of-the-mill middle manager climbing the corporate ranks—not a Pro Bowl quarterback who can throw five touchdowns on any given Sunday!
As it stands, Watson has all sorts of public relations and brand issues going on with the allegations against him—so maybe he should go for a full rebrand to Derrick—and hope that people forget all of the nasty accusations that he has been tied to in recent months.
Mecole Hardman
It isn’t just the quarterbacks that we have seen roll with the middle name in lieu of their birth names though. Take Kansas City Chiefs speedster ‘Mecole Hardman’ for example.
The wide receiver and kick return specialist was actually born Carey Mecole Hardman Jr.
He did not really have much of a choice but to go by Mecole either. His father was apparently a legend in the Georgia high school football world—and he, like his son, went by Mecole. So it was only natural for him to try and carry on the family name as best he could.
Chris Godwin
Similarly, Chris Godwin, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers star receiver, was born Rod Christopher Godwin—but he, like Hardman decided to go with the middle name instead.
It doesn’t seem like he had the deep family ties to the middle name like the Chiefs’ wideout, but he has been Chris since day one.
I will say—with this one—I do kind of wish he went by his original name. Rod Godwin has a pretty electric ring to it! Nevertheless, the whole Chris thing has been working out pretty well for him so far, so maybe he should just stick with it!
Raheem Mostert
The last middle name guy on our list here is Raheem Mostert. He was born Dominique Raheem Mostert—which is a mouthful!
As much fun as I have had to nitpick everyone’s names—I feel like this one was kind of a win, win—and I doubt Mostert has put too much thought into which name he goes by these days… After being cut by six teams before finally making his breakthrough onto an NFL roster, he is probably just content with where he is at!
Tee Higgins
And finally… Last but not least, we have Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins, who might have the coolest fake name on this entire list.
Tee—just works for a star receiver!
But just because he has grown into the name—and established himself as a promising young receiver in the league, doesn’t mean that it was his birth name!
He was actually born Tamaurice William Higgins—and his name just got shortened down to Tee somewhere along the way.
The only debate here is whether he should have gone harder on it—and shortened all the way down to the letter T, which in my humble opinion would have been pretty cool.
We have seen plenty of two-letter guys in the league over the years—but a player with just a single letter for his first name, that would be groundbreaking!
