World’s Longest Name: The 2,253-Word Identity That Shocked Everyone

The person with the longest name in the world takes 20 minutes to introduce himself

For most people, introducing themselves is a formality that can be completed in a few seconds.

But for Laurence Watkins, this simple task proves to be surprisingly difficult.

This is because his name consists of 2253 words and it takes 20 minutes to repeat it completely.

He did this at his first wedding in 1991 when his name was repeated through an audio recording.

The recording was played while the guests were eating there.

Laurence Watkins, 60, from Auckland, New Zealand, worked as a security guard and is now retired.

His name was recently listed in the Guinness World Records as the person with the longest personal name.

Born in 1965 as Laurence Gregory Watkins, the man was inspired by a TV program called Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

This interest soon spread to the Guinness Book of World Records, which he studied every page of and decided to make his name a part of its pages.

He said in an interview that ‘I was very surprised how one person set the record for the fastest man in the world, the tallest or shortest height, long hair, long nails and many records were amazing’.

It very soon he realized that it was very difficult for an ordinary person who did not have any special abilities to set a record.
So he decided to set a record for the longest name in the world.

According to him, ‘The second option was the height difference between the spouses, at that time this record was held by a South African man, who was 6 feet 2 inches tall while his wife was 3 feet tall, but I found it very difficult’.

For a month, they decided to keep the name and paid a typist $230 to have it typed.

Their name now consists of 2,253 names, mostly Latin, Old English, famous people and books.

Their full name was typed on six pages and a legal application to change the name was submitted in 1990.
The Auckland District Court granted the application, but then they faced the final hurdle before the Registrar General.
According to Laurence Watkins, "The registrar said I could only get a new name if I took it to the High Court."

He said, "At that time the government had no legal basis that could be used to reject the name, so I won."
Two years later, in March 1992, his name entered the Guinness World Records as the world's longest Christian name, consisting of 2,310 words.

In September 2025, the words in the name were re-counted and it is now part of the Guinness World Records as the world's longest personal name, consisting of 2,253 individual names.

Laurence Watkins now lives in Sydney, Australia, and in everyday life he introduces himself as Laurence Elon Elway Watkins, but his full name on his birth certificate is spread over 7 pages and his original passport required 6 additional pages for this.

He has been to Australia 4 times. He tried and failed to become the mayor of the land, but the name Lord Earl Duke King St Watkins was used for these elections.

After his victory in the High Court in 1990, New Zealand changed two laws to close the door to such long names.
Citizens are now not allowed to have names that use official titles, positions, numbers, symbols or are longer than 70 characters.

His Name:

Laurence Alon Aloys Aloysius Alphege Alun Alured Alwyn Alysandyr Ambie Ambrose Ambrosius Amias Amiot Amyas Anders Andre Andrea Andreas Andrew Andy Aneirin Anguish Anleifr Anthin Anthony Antonio Aonghus Aqob Arch Archibald Arinwald Arinwulf Arn Arnauld Arnolphe Arter Arthen Arthgen Arthur Artorius Asgeirr Asmundr Auberon Aubert Aubrey August Augustine Augustus Austin Auveray Avere Avery Awstin Aylbricht Aylmer Aylwyn Aymie Baldassare Baldavin Baldewyne Baltasar Balthasar Bannerjee Barnabas Barnaby Barnard Bartelemieu Barthelemy Bartholomew Bartle Bartlemey Bartley Bartolomeu Bartolommeo Basil Bastian Baudkin Baudouin Baz Bearach Bearrach Bedo Belize Belshazzar Benedetto Benedict Benedictine Bennett Benito Benjamin Beornheard Beppo Berahtraben Bernard Bernardo Bertie Bertram Bertrand Bjorn Bodwine Boisil Boris Boswell Boudewyn Bram Brandan Brenainn Brennan Bruce Brush Cadog Cadwaladr Cadwallon Caecilius Caesar Caioneach Caius Calvin Canice.......

Its name is approximately 2,253 words long. I cannot write the complete name, so you can search for it on the internet yourself.