Express & Star

What a knockout! Girl has 25 middle names honouring boxing greats

Some people think having a double-barrelled name is hard enough to remember – but try having 25 of them.

Published
Willow with her mother Maria

For one 10-year-old Wolverhampton schoolgirl that is the reality.

Willow Taylor-Brown, for short, is named after every gloved heavyweight boxing champion up to 1974.

Boxing greats Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Sonny Liston and Rocky Marciano all feature in the young girls name.

WATCH: It's a knockout name!

Perton Middle School student Willow, who celebrated her 10th birthday on Tuesday , said it would take her a couple of years to learn her full name – Willow Sullivan Corbett Fitzsimmons Jefferies Hart Burns Johnson Willard Dempsey Tunney Schmeling Sharkey Carnera Baer Braddock Louis Charles Walcott Marciano Patterson Johansson Liston Clay Frazier Fareman Taylor-Brown.

The tradition was started by the family back in 1974, when Willow's mother Maria was given the names by her parents Brian and Sue.

Willow's boxing-mad granddad Brian Brown was renowned for travelling abroad to get his boxing fix – watching fights all across the globe.

What a knockout name

Maria Brown, 44, from Perton, said: "My dad used to take a couple of planes to see a fight regularly. He has been to a few countries to see fights, he is a big boxing fan."

The tradition doesn't stop with Willow or her mother either – Maria's other daughter, 11-year-old Autumn, also sports the same middle names.

The naming tradition is something that has kept the family in the spotlight for years – from Maria ending up in the 1975 Guinness World Book of Records to Autumn being on Japanese television.

"I feel blessed, it is a unique thing to have," Maria said. "Having been the person that started everybody naming their children after football teams and all of that, it is nice to be the first one."

"Willow doesn't know all of the names, she knows a few. I didn't remember the names until I was 10 and that is because I went on a television show and saw a memory man.

The birth certificate

"It was called Just Amazing with Barry Sheene. I could just remember after that point, and on the train home.

"It is nice when people ask you your name and reel it off. They sort of think it is weird at first but when you do it again they realise you are telling the truth.

"It has always raised a chuckle. It is not on my passport but it is on Willow's. They just ask her if she remembers it, but it is quite a hard and long name to pick up.

"Everyone likes to have their 15 minutes of fame and it is something unusual."