Last month 49ers safety Donte Whitner scheduled a court a date in his home state of Ohio to legally change his last name to “Hitner.” That hearing was set for today, but now the name change is not going forward.
Cam Inman of the Bay Area News Group reports that Whitner withdrew his application with the Ohio probate court and so the application has been dismissed.
Whitner initially said he wanted to drop the ‘W’ from his name after he was fined for two hits early this season. Whitner felt that a name starting with “Hit” would be a good way to celebrate what he was becoming known for in the NFL.
But now Whitner has changed his mind. It’s not clear why Whitner decided not to go through with the name change, but it might have been a simple financial calculation: Under NFL rules, a player who changes his name has to buy any jerseys that have been printed with his old name on them before the league will let him put his new name on his jersey. Whitner might have decided that the name change isn’t worth the cost of purchasing a bunch of jerseys with his original last name on them.
