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22 Jan 2026 10:53
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  •   Home > News > Entertainment

    Pamela Anderson "would like to change her name" to embrace her Finnish heritage

    The 58-year-old star has revealed she often wants to reclaim the moniker previously held by her late Finnish grandfather Herman Hyytiäinen, which was changed when the family arrived in Canada.


    She told Vogue Scandinavia: "Sometimes I don't want to be Pamela Anderson. I want to be Pamela Hyytiäinen. I would like to change my name, but they won’t let me.”
    The Baywatch star - who described her grandfather as "the closest person to me in my life" - recalled how Herman taught her Finnish as a young girl, but at the time she believed it to be a mythical language only they shared.
    However, she lost touch with being able to speak it fluently after he died when she was around 11 years old.
    She added: "It kind of left with him."
    In 2007, she and her father visited Finland to see their relatives, and she was keen to "feel that connection" with the land her grandfather told her about through folk tales and myths.
    She explained: "I just wanted to go, to feel that connection. I’d love to go back to Finland, maybe with my sons. 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. I’ve always been proud to tell people I’m Finnish, even before I knew what that really meant.”
    Family legacy has always been important to Pamela, who bought her grandparents' Vancouver Island estate three decades ago.
    She laughed: “I live in the house I grew up in, which is triggering and crazy.
    "Even though I’ve renovated, I’ve kept a lot of the charm of my grandparents’ place. I feel him there.
    “Herman was very tall, six foot three. I can see him sitting in his La-Z-Boy chair, and I can hear him, he had such a low voice. He still has such a strong presence in the house.”

    © 2026 Bang Showbiz, NZCity

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