What drives a man to change his name to Santa Claus?
Is it a compulsion to grow a flowing white beard? The sleigh and reindeer?
Santa Claus is real. In fact, there are several people with the Santa mantle in the United States. A handful of Americans also legally go by Kris Kringle.
Most of these jolly old souls changed their given names to become part of an exclusive red-and-white-clad club, but each has a different reason why.
Santa Claus, of North Pole, Alaska, was working as a child advocate when he decided to change his name from Thomas Patrick O’Connor in 2004.
“I had grown out my beard just to see what it would look like, and it was all white,” Claus, 66, recalled. “That Christmas, I played Santa for about 30 nonprofits.”
Before his foray into Santa-hood, O’Connor was a film student at NYU, an assistant to the NYPD’s deputy commissioner under Mayor John Lindsay and a priest with the Apostles Anglican Church. None of it could match the kind of satisfaction he got from making kids smile.
“I was praying on how I could use this gift to do the most good for the most number of children, from a child advocate point of view,” he said. “About 10 minutes passed, and this white, nondescript car passed, and a guy stuck his head out and shouted, ‘I love you Santa!’ That’s when I decided to change my name.”
For the former Frank Pascuzzi, a Long Island father of four, becoming Santa was more of a practical matter.
“The main concern came up a lot at Christmas parties. The kids would run to the window and look to see me jump into my sleigh,” he said. “Now, I can show them my driver’s license, my credit cards to prove that I’m real.”
The 54-year-old — who in the milder months hangs up his fuzzy red hat to manage his Santa’s BBQ business and work a construction job — said his name change has worked to perfection so far.
“Now, I have an excuse as to why I have to drive a truck,” he said.
Santa A. Claus of Easton, Penn., had his yuletide awakening after a car crash in 1982. Back then, his friends knew him as J. Patrick Allen.
“After the collision, I gained a lot of weight. I was in the hospital for 13 months — I went from 170 pounds to 268 pounds,” he said. “My friends saw me and said I should go to the malls and get a job because I looked better than all the other Santas.”
In 1984, Allen began a nine-year odyssey to have his name changed. For years, a judge blocked him, but on March 13, 1995, his birthday, he was approved.