A Manhattan man’s holiday spirits soared to celestial heights Friday when a judge gave him permission to change his name to Jesus Christ.
Jose Luis Espinal, 42, of Washington Heights, said he was “happy” and “grateful” that the judge approved the change, effective immediately. Espinal said he was moved to seek the name change about a year ago when it dawned on him, “I am the person that is that name.”
Espinal, who acted as his own lawyer, got the change approved by Manhattan Civil Court Judge Diane Lebedeff, who said she was “satisfied that this application is neither novel, nor would granting it pose practical problems.”
The judge said name change applications usually are not denied just because the change might cause practical difficulties or be thought unwise, as long as a person with the same name does not object to the proposed change.
She cited a 2001 Utah case in which a man legally changed his name to “Santa Claus” and a Washington, D.C., case earlier this year in which a name change applicant obtained a driver’s license and Social Security card in the name of “Jesus Christ.”
The two newly-minted Jesi are set to decide who wears the real crown of thorns in the Ultimate Pride Fighting Championship’s “One of Them Will Not Rise,” a special pay-per-view event to be broadcast live on Easter Sunday from Atlantic City, New Jersey.
update: On a related note, in 1987, after a three-day house tequila and bean burrito binge, I came perilously close to having my name legally changed to “Salt N’Pepa.”
Mercifully, the judge took note of the vomit on my t-shirt and sent me home.
True story—and all so that when I entered a room I could say, “Salt N’Pepper’s here!”
Man, was I ever hammered. And of course, the first thing you lose on a tequila bender is your sense of what ephemeral pop-cultural icons are likely to have long-term staying power.
That would be “Jesi”, not Jesii”, eg. “Julius” would be “Julii”.
Caveat, ergo sum.
Or something like that.
That’s some shoddy reporting.
Did he change his middle name to a timeless “H” or “Tapdancing,” or did he make the tequila mistake and go for a fashionably regrettable “Dylan” or “Tittyfucking?”
Lazy Fifth Columists.
He may not have thought this through. With that name he will not be allowed within 100 feet of any government office, school, or public square. Nor will any employee of a retail establish be allowed to call him by name and wish him a nice day.
Woulda been cooler if you’d tried to be Salt’N’Pepa!
Then you could’ve been way ahead of the curve.
The Third Coming?
Aw,man!
Not again!
Dire Straight’s ”Industrial Disease” comes to mind:
Two men say they’re Jesus, one of ‘em must be wrong…
They need 1 more, then they can replay “The 3 Christs of Ypsilanti”
So wait a minute – the loser of the match stays down (and the stone don’t roll away from his tomb) while the winner of the match gets flogged then nailed up by Roman soldiers? That should make Showtime a few bucks!
Pay-per-view, man. We’re talking $29.99 or some such.
That’s big time religion money there, boy.
Lousy activist judges.
Actually, I think it’s CAVEO ERGO SVM. If I remember correctly, CAVEO is the first person present of that verb, and the Romans used all caps and no punctuation, much like liberals.
Well, if his middle name isn’t “the,” then it doesn’t count.
tw