WWE has this weird fixation with names. WWE does seem to be straying away from having longer names, which I find kind of odd. A year or so ago (probably longer now that I think about it) Antonio Cesaro had his name changed to just Cesaro, Big E Langston shortened his name to just Big E, and the latest one I can remember was Adrian Neville changing his name to just Neville. I don’t understand why WWE is making these names so much shorter, maybe they are better for merchandise because they don’t have to pay as much or a shirt to be made? There’s still people with normal sounding names though like John Cena, Kevin Owens, and somehow through some miracle Samoa Joe was able to keep his name.
Going along that route Samoa Joe didn’t have to change his name but Kevin Steen had to change his name to Kevin Owens. El Generico had to change his name to Sami Zayn, but yet CM Punk was able to keep his name. From what I understand CM Punk fought hard to keep his name and he was already making the WWE a lot of money so they weren’t going to jeopardize that profit just so they could own CM Punk’s name.
Lastly there’s the Shane/Shawn rule that WWE has. Basically it’s a rule that no one shall be able to come into WWE and have the first name of Shane or Shawn. The reason for this is quite obvious but if you don’t get it, Shane McMahon is the son of Vincent McMahon so that name is off limits. When Shane Helms came to WWE he had to change his name to Gregory Helms because he could not have the name of Shane. Shawn Michaels is one of the biggest stars of the WWE, having headlined multiple Wrestlemanias and making the company millions of dollars so no one can ever have the name of Shawn ever again in WWE.
Bonus: Kevin Owens chose his name because he had to change it and wanted to honor his kid. His son’s name is Owen.