The California State Capitol building on Sunday, March 29, 2026 in Sacramento, CA.
Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag
The ballot for the California gubernatorial primary election is a whopping 61 names long. There are the candidates with a real chance to win, such as Democrat billionaire Tom Steyer and Republican sheriff Chad Bianco. Then there are a bunch of random people running for various reasons, many of whom have incredible names like Thunder Parley and LivingForGod AndCountry DeMott. Here, we come to the real thing we care about: a man born and raised in good ol’ Houston who changed his name to Barack Denzel Obama Shaw.
No, that is not his birth name. He was born in Houston as Cecil Shaw III and graduated from M.B. Smiley High School, now known as North Forest. Obama Shaw spent time in the U.S. Army Reserves from 2008 to 2016. According to his campaign website, in 2013 while still in the Army Reserves, he apparently had a vision that nudged him to change his name to Barack Denzel Obama Shaw.
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“President Barack Obama brought a hope into the world that I had never seen or experienced before,” Obama Shaw says on his personal website. “This was the catalyst that had me legally change my name because I believe that people today need that same type of hope.”
It turns out that Obama Shaw has a fairly interesting Houston history, one he only alludes to on his personal website. His father, Cecil Shaw Jr., was a producer and musician who performed on “Soul Train” in 1974 alongside Jerry Butler of the Impressions and R&B group The Delfonics. Obama Shaw’s grandfather was Brother Cecil Shaw, a gospel artist in the 1950s. Among other things, Brother Shaw worked with legendary Houston record executive Don Robey, regarded as the first Black record mogul (Robey would predate Motown founder Berry Gordy by a decade). Brother Shaw is even mentioned in a 1999 biography of Ray Charles. However, Brother Shaw’s music is lost to time outside of a few recordings on YouTube.
Obama Shaw has a similar love of entertainment, though, according to an interview he gave to the California-based Mercury News, his sights are much smaller. He apparently hosts a talent show called “Alameda’s Got Talent” at a local theater. ” He told the Mercury News (without evidence) that for 30 years, people have been comparing him to both Obama and Denzel Washington.
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“So I said, ‘What I’m gonna do is I’m going to legally change my name, listen to what the people say, create a great conglomeration of a possibility, represent my grandfather, my dad, represent Denzel Washington and represent Barack Obama, and myself,” Obama Shaw told the Mercury News.
Obama Shaw did, however, concede that the name change could theoretically be helpful in his pursuit of political office. In 2022, Obama Shaw came in third place in the Alameda, California, mayoral race with 6 percent and decided to give politics another try.
Candidates for governor of California, share the stage in a CNN televised debate on Tuesday, May 5, 2026.
MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Dail/MediaNews Group via Getty Images
“Before I ran for political office, I said my name is going to be Barack D. Obama Shaw,” he told the Mercury News. “Enough could possibly like him in California that it may give me a chance (in the governor’s race), and that’s just what it is.”
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Changing your name as a political publicity stunt is a treasured American tradition, and one we love in Texas, too. Who could forget Larry “SECEDE” Kilgore, or Kinky Friedman, or Carol Keeton “Grandma” Strayhorn, or even recent entrants like Vince “ShamWow” Shlomi?
Obama Shaw needs all the help he can get. He’s not listed in any of the publicly available polling in the June 2 primary, though it’s probably safe to say he’s not polling anywhere near the frontrunners. But you know who else was counted out and regarded as a longshot? The real Barack Obama himself. And who knows. Maybe Obama Shaw is a secret genius, and his knowledge of Houston’s lack of zoning is actually the key to fixing California’s housing crisis.
“There’s people more educated, better looking, have more properties, more experience, more everything than I do, right?” Obama Shaw told the Mercury News. “But until that person shows up, I’m going to do the job.”
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