The teen hopes to get tickets to the June Eras Tour performance in Edinburgh.
Global pop sensation Taylor Swift has been in the news since she started performing her Eras Tour. She also surprised fans last week with the release of a new album, "The Tortured Poets Department," which turned out to be a double album. However, a 19-year-old namesake from Lanarkshire in Scotland is going through a hard time, as per a report in the New York Post.
She said that her identity has been questioned by officials at the border and taxi drivers. This has happened so many times that she now carries her passport to prove that she is not impersonating the "Lover" singer. "I've had hell because of my name," the Swift of Scotland told The Sun.
Mairi Rice and Peter Swift named their daughter Taylor before the American singer became a sensation. When Taylor Swift's self-titled first album was released in 2006, their daughter, who was born in December 2004, was roughly 2 years old. Her mother told the outlet, "Normally, most of us only need to have documentation for a few things. But for Taylor, she needs it for absolutely everything. Nobody believes her."
"As soon as we saw our girl, she just looked like a Taylor Swift. She is very outgoing, very bubbly. The name Taylor Swift is not a coincidence. Something led to that. It's in her character," Mairi Rice said, adding that they did not know about the American singer when they were naming their daughter.
At the age of 12, the teenager attending Taylor High School found for the first time that she had a name in common with a famous person. Students began approaching her at school and told her that she had "a famous name" after the release of her album "1989" in 2014. "I told them, 'No, I don't.' Then I realized who she was. Now I'm a top Swiftie fan. I love her," she said of her namesake.
The 19-year-old said that she was popular in school and never had problems with "getting bullied". "Maybe in a few arguments, I got, 'Shut up - your name's Taylor Swift.' Some people don't like her. But I love Taylor. That's life; you just move on," she continued.
However, she faces a major problem as employers think that she is not "genuine" when she applies to jobs and has a difficult time finding work. "When applying for jobs, I think I don't get any news back because they're looking at my name and they think it's a fake application or something," she shared. Additionally, this younger Taylor acknowledges that her name might be embarrassing and she has faced suspicion from medical professionals, dentists, retail employees, and other individuals. "The last holiday we went on, we were approaching the gate when we could hear the air hostesses saying, 'We can't believe her name is Taylor Swift,' And when it comes to the passport checks, staff are skeptical. They say to her, 'Your name is what?' And they'll look again," her mother said.
The 19-year-old also has issues showing her ID at bars since people are not convinced about her name and age as she "looks so young" and shares a name with a famous personality. "But I'll get in with my ID. And then everybody's talking about my name, saying, 'Taylor Swift is in the pub.' I need to show everybody my passport. I've been embarrassed so much because of my name that I deserve something good out of it. I do like my name - it's quite unique. But sometimes there can be embarrassing sides to it," the youngster said.
She also shared that she is not even able to make a Facebook account due to the same. "When we put her name into Facebook, they were, like, 'You're trying to copy her name.' We sent them documents but they still said she was copying a celebrity's name," her mother continued.
As a self-proclaimed "Swiftie", this teenager Taylor Swift acknowledges that she enjoys singing her namesake's songs at karaoke whenever she gets the chance. She even hopes to get tickets to the June Eras Tour performance at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh. "I love Taylor Swift. I was saying to my pals if she comes here, I'll need to get a ticket so I can go on stage with her. I'd hold up a big poster saying, 'My name is Taylor Swift.' I wanted tickets, but they are so expensive," the 19-year-old added.