Official: Metta World Peace
Artest’s initial request to change his name last month was delayed because of a failure to pay an outstanding parking ticket. “As soon as we found out about it from the previous hearing, once we were able to track down the ticket, it was immediately taken care of,” Barnes said. Artest’s 8-year-old daughter, Diamond, also plans to change her surname from Artest to World Peace now that her father’s name change has become official. “This process needed to go through [Friday] and be legal before there would be any pursuit of that,” Barnes said. “Metta is going to be the first name and it means like friendship, love and kindness,” Artest told Stephen A. Smith on 710 ESPNLA earlier this month. “World Peace is going to be the last name, so everybody can get ready to buy their World Peace jerseys.”
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