18 years ago, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson’s parents gave him the best possible chance of breaking an unusual record.
Borthwick-Jackson made his first Manchester United start during last weekend’s 2-1 defeat to Bournemouth and, in doing so, became the owner of the longest name ever to represent the Red Devils with 24 letters.
The clever clogs who run the Google machine over at Old Trafford found that the young defender had eclipsed the previous holder of that honour, Bastian Schweinsteiger (23 letters), who only became a United player in the summer.
According to ManUtd.com, Borthwick-Jackson is also level with the owners of the longest names in Premier League history – Kevin Theophile-Catherine and Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink.
We’re not sure how official it is because the club make it known that they ruled out the likes of Luís Carlos Almeida da Cunha (24 letters) because he was more commonly known as Nani.
Longest United names: 23 – Cameron Borthwick-Jackson; 21 – Bastian Schweinsteiger; 18 – Herbert Birchenough, Charlie McGillivray, Thomas O’Shaughnessy, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Juan Sebastian Veron, Walter Winterbottom, Billy Wrigglesworth; 17 – Russell Beardsmore, Danny Higginbotham, Andrei Kanchelskis, David McFetteridge, Raimond van der Gouw, Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Double-barrelled United names: Cameron Borthwick-Jackson, Eric Djemba-Djemba, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, Ian Storey-Moore.
Longest Premier League names: 23 – Cameron Borthwick-Jackson, Kevin Theophile-Catherine, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink; 22 – Giovanni van Bronckhorst; 21 – Jamie Barnwell-Edinboro, Jean-Claude Darcheville, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Konstantinos Mitroglou, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Nikodimos Papavasiliou, Bradley Wright-Phillips; 20 – Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, Stelios Giannakopoulos, Rushian Hepburn-Murphy, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Christian Wilhelmsson.
