NFL Recognizes Chad Johnson's Name Change, With Unsurprising Annoying Bureaucratic Twist

The good news for Johnson: the NFL will let him wear his new name on his jersey this year. The bad news? Because of some careless form-filling, it won't appear quite as he'd like.

You see, it seems when Johnson legally changed his name last August, he wrote it out on the name-change form as "Ochocinco", instead of "Ocho Cinco". So instead of a cool, two-word nickname, the NFL says he's stuck with the one-word handle, which is doomed to be repeatedly mispronounced by Dick Stockton as "Awk-hotchin-ko".

The NFL explained its decision in typical humanoid fashion:

"It's his legal name," AFC information manager Corry Rush said Thursday.

Rush then immediately went back to re-checking the spelling of "Roethlisberger" for the 9,000th time in his tedious, soul-destroying career.

You may recall that part of the reason Ochocinco wasn't allowed to use his new name last year was because Reebok would have been stuck with all the "Johnson" Bengals jerseys they had already produced. I'm not sure whether he has time to change his name again before Reebok makes this year's batch. If not, be prepared to read pretty much this exact same story next year, when the league forces the Bengals' wideout to wear an "Ogho Gingo" jersey, because "his 'c's really look like 'g's."

Bengals receiver has yet another name [Yahoo Sports]