To the kids at school, she’ll be Autumn Brown.
But her full name is Autumn Sullivan Corbett Fitzsimmons Jeffries Hart Burns Johnson Willard Dempsey Tunney Schmeling Sharkey Carnera Baer Braddock Louis Charles Walcott Marciano Patterson Johansson Liston Clay Frazier Foreman Brown.
Autumn’s middle names are the surnames of 25 world heavyweight boxing champions, beginning with John L. Sullivan and ending with George Foreman.
Why does Autumn — who was born about 6 weeks ago in Wolverhampton, England — have these 25 middle names?
All 25 were passed down from her mother, Maria.
So how did Maria come to have these names?
Maria was born in 1974 to boxing-obsessed parents who decided to name her after “every gloved heavyweight boxing champion” up to that point.
“When I was young I couldn’t ever remember my name. It took me to the age of 10 to memorize it all,” Maria said.
Maria’s two siblings have similarly unwieldy names. Her sister Becky (whose middles were inspired by British heavyweight boxers) has 34 given names, and her brother Brian (whose middles were inspired by bare-knuckle boxers) has 42 given names.
Update, Mar. 2025: I just learned that Autumn has a younger sister named Willow (born in October of 2008) who has the same 25 middle names!
Sources:
- “Autumn’s a real knockout!” Express & Star 22 Jun. 2007.
- Roberts, Joe. “Girl, 10, has 25 middle names and she still hasn’t learned them all.” Metro News 12 Oct. 2018.
Image: Adapted from Max Baer, Myrna Loy, Primo Carnera 1932 (public domain)
[Latest update: Mar. 2025]