Why Colts LB Darius Leonard Wants To Change His Name?
Darius Leonard told reporters a few days ago that he wants to change his first name to Shaquille. Continue on for more about Darius Leonard name change…
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CelebnSports247.com reports that Darius Shaquille Leonard was drafted into the NFL in 2018 and spent the first four years of his career going by his first name.
But as the 2022 NFL season arrives, he is changing things up.
Leonard told reporters at the beginning of Colts training camp that he preferred to be called Shaquille Leonard moving forward.
Why? As Nate Atkins of The Indy Star reports, Leonard’s middle name is Shaquille, and that’s what his family has referred to him as since he was young. So, if going by Shaquille was a long-term thing for Leonard, why didn’t he make his preference known until his fifth year in the league?
Atkins wrote on Twitter:
He never wanted to say anything about it until just now.
Darius Leonard said he’d like to be called Shaquille, which is his middle name and the one he grew up with. He never wanted to say anything about it until just now.
— Nate Atkins (@NateAtkins_) July 26, 2022
The Indianapolis Colts Linebacker continued to further explained why he wants his first name to change:
I went by Shaquille my whole life and I understand that it’ll be a hard change to be called Shaquille after being called Darius for 4 years. It’s not a huge deal and it wouldn’t be no hard feelings if you called me Darius. Shaquille is my middle name that I’ve went by since 95.
— Darius Shaquille Leonard (@dsleon45) July 26, 2022
What do you think about Leonard’s name change?
We get it, he doesn’t like his first name so he wants to go by his middle name. So be it. We will call him Shaquille from now on.
