Featured Image Credit: Taylor J. Swift/Popvox Foundation/Steve Granitz/FilmMagic via Getty
Topics: Celebrity, Music, Taylor Swift, US News
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: Celebrity, Music, Taylor Swift, US News
A man shares the same name as Taylor Swift and has opened up about the response he gets when people realise.
Imagine sharing the same name as one of the biggest pop stars on the planet - you'd probably feel the pressure a bit.
The singer had only released one or two hits by the time when she came on the radar of 15-year-old Taylor J Swift, however, and sharing a name with the iconic singer has impacted his life in more ways than one.
In an interview with Business Insider, the now-30-year-old who works for the POPVOX Foundation - which supports innovation in government and civic engagement - in Washington, DC explains that he didn't initially think sharing the same name as the pop star would 'impact' him.
However, as time went on, he began to find it 'frustrating'.
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He continues: "I was just a kid trying to live my life, and I was now sharing a name with a big singer.
"Additionally, I had just moved back to Ohio to live with my dad, so I was the new kid at school, with the name Taylor Swift. To top it off, I had a Justin Bieber haircut, I had glasses, and I was on the debate team, it wasn't a fun time."
Sharing a name with the 'Cruel Summer' singer ultimately led to Taylor experiencing some high school bullying and by the time he got to college, he decided he had two options - 'change' his name or 'embrace' it.
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"It took a lot of self-realization, but after a while, I decided I'd run with Taylor Swift instead of choosing the name TJ, an abbreviation of my first and middle name," Taylor continues.
"I remember thinking, I was given this name for a reason, and I'm going to grow, and become who I'm meant to become with it."
And it's actually helped him 'stand out' at work, as people remembering Taylor's name more easily and he's able to use it to 'make conversations more light-hearted,' although it has led to some people not taking him as seriously.
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Oh and there's sometimes a fair share of disappointment from servers when he books a table under his name and they're expecting the pop star to arrive.
But Taylor resolves: " Like normal, they joked about how I wasn't the real Taylor Swift, so I just laughed and said, I hear it all the time but I just shake it off."