‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Star Rob McElhenney Is Changing His Name

Rob McElhenney is making a change.

The It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star and creator, 48, legally filed to change his name to Rob Mac on June 26, TMZ reports, just a month after he hinted at his plans to simplify the pronunciation of his last name.

“As our business and our storytelling is expanding into other regions of the world and other languages in which my name is even harder to pronounce, I’m just going by Rob Mac,” the actor told Variety in May while referencing his company More Better Industries.

McElhenney has already been credited as Rob Mac in FX’s online materials for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, for which he serves as an executive producer and writer in addition to starring as his character Mac.

In a humorous video shared to X (formerly Twitter) on July 1, McElhenney confirmed he was “shortening” his name to Rob Mac, which he noted was “mostly a stage name.”

“The amount of time that I have wasted trying to get people to either say or spell my name correctly is literally days of my life,” he said in the video, as clips of people saying his name wrong played. “Trust me, I added it up.”

He continued, “More importantly, it means thousands of you have had minutes of your life stolen by me because of my last name.”

“Still, it’s a family name,” the Mythic Quest star noted. “My grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and I all share it, and I love them and I want to stay connected. There’s heritage. Except, it’s not even really our f—king name.”

I said what I said. pic.twitter.com/lvwKgTBBrx

— Rob Mac (@RMcElhenney) July 1, 2025

He pointed out that the spelling of his surname has changed multiple times over the years, and that “the current one was just given to my ancestor by a government official who decided that this was now the spelling.” In fact, McElhenney pointed out that his great-great-grandmother was a Bridget McIllhenny.

“Times have changed and most people already call me Rob Mac anyway,” he continued. “My family knows me and loves me regardless of how many syllables I have, and that’s the only thing that I really care about. There are so many things going on in the world, and this is a silly one to continue to waste your time with.”

McElhenney assured people that they can “call [him] whatever [they] want,” but “maybe we just keep it simple and try Rob Mac.” He concluded, “Let’s see how it goes.”