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Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more
Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more
Pamela Anderson is hoping to change her famous name for the sake of her family history.
The 58-year-old actor said she wanted to change her last name to Hyytiäinen, in honor of her Finnish family, during a recent interview with Vogue Scandinavia.
“Sometimes I don’t want to be Pamela Anderson. I want to be Pamela Hyytiäinen, she told the publication. “I would like to change my name, but they won’t let me.”
Hyytiäinen was her grandfather Herman’s surname before it was changed to Anderson when his family arrived in Canada from Finland. Anderson’s late grandfather was a logger and poet, with the actor noting that he helped her expand her imagination as a child.
She also credited Herman’s kindness and personality for helping her find the joy in her life as an actor, model, and writer.
Pamela Anderson wants to change her last name to Hyytiäinen in honor of her late grandfather (Getty Images)
“My imagination has run wild with me over the years. I’ve been trying different people on for size,” she explained. “You have to peel it all back, many times, and start over and over again.”
It was Anderson’s family legacy that encouraged her to take a trip to Finland in 2007, alongside her father and their relatives. She also wanted to see the land that belonged to her grandfather; a place she hopes to return to with her two children, Brandon, 29, and Dylan, 27, shared with her ex, Tommy Lee.
“I’d love to go back to Finland, maybe with my sons. To find out more about myself, to explore that side of me. Maybe we will change my name and go back, to answer to my roots,” the Baywatch alum explained. “It feels distant, but it’s a part of me. I’ve always been proud to tell people I’m Finnish, even before I knew what that really meant.”
“I keep seeing the image of myself there in the corner of my screen, I don’t recognize myself with that red hair,” she added, referring to how she dyed her signature blonde hair red in September. “Who is that? Maybe it’s Pamela Hyytiäinen.”
When she was growing up, Anderson’s grandfather also taught her Finnish, and she would often carry a dictionary around with her. However, after her grandfather, whom she called the “closest person to me in my life,” died when she was 11, she didn’t continue to learn the language.
“It kind of left with him,” she said.
The actor previously spoke about how important her family’s Finnish name is to her. During a 2015 interview with Esquire, she discussed her family’s move from the northern European nation to Canada, calling her grandfather “a healer from Finland” who changed his name when he moved.
