Pamela Anderson is one of the most recognizable names in Hollywood, but the star admitted she has thought a lot about changing her name.
“Sometimes I don’t want to be Pamela Anderson,” the Naked Gun actress candidly said during a December 2025 interview with Vogue Scandinavia. “I want to be Pamela Hyytiäinen. I would like to change my name, but they won’t let me.”
The confession shocked some fans, who have come to know and love the Baywatch star under her given name. But the name Hyytiäinen has deep roots in her family’s history and has a sentimental meaning for Anderson, one that she’s looking to embrace and share more details about.
Scroll below for everything Anderson has said about wanting to change her name.
Why Does Pamela Anderson Want to Change Her Name?
Anderson’s Finnish grandfather, Herman Hyytiäinen, was a huge inspiration to her growing up, with his whimsical personality as someone who found joy in nature and folklore. “He was the closest person to me in my life,” she told Vogue Scandinavia in December 2025 of their bond.
The actress explained that when her family immigrated from Finland to Canada more than a century ago, they changed their last name from Hyytiäinen to Anderson. They used the surname Anderson from then on.
Pamela Anderson Learned Finnish as a Child
Pamela was born in Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada, to parents Barry and Carol Anderson in 1967. Her grandfather taught her Finnish, and she carried a Finnish dictionary around with her as a child. Herman always encouraged her to embrace her creative side.
“My imagination has run wild with me over the years. I’ve been trying different people on for size,” Pamela said in her Vogue spread. “You have to peel it all back, many times, and start over and over again.”
Herman died when Pamela was 11 years old, and she felt like her connection to her roots slipped away. “It kind of left with him,” she reflected.
Pamela Anderson Visited Finland
Pamela was inspired to visit Finland with her father to spend time with her relatives in 2007.
“I just wanted to go to feel that connection. I’d love to go back to Finland, maybe with my sons,” she remembered. “To find out more about myself, to explore that side of me. Maybe we will change my name and go back, to answer to my roots. It feels distant, but it’s a part of me.”
Pamela, who shares sons Brandon and Dylan with ex-husband Tommy Lee, said she has “always been proud to tell people I’m Finnish, even before I knew what that really meant.”
Years after the memorable visit, she briefly opened up about her Finnish roots once more.
“My grandfather was a healer from Finland,” Pamela told Esquire in April 2015. “My real last name is Hyytiäinen. He changed it to Anderson when he came to Canada. All of his brothers changed their names, too, so I have a feeling that maybe something bad happened in Finland.”
