Why did Benjamin Netanyahu's son change his name?

TEL AVIV: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s oldest son Yair Netanyahu has legally changed his name.

According to a report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, he’s now officially Yonatan Hun. The 2026 tax records show the new name. But the ID number and address are the same as the ones that were listed under Yair Netanyahu in the 2024 documents.

In Israel once you legally change your name you can’t change it again for 7 years so this move from Benjamin Netanyahu’s son seems pretty serious.

It’s not clear yet if he actually wants to be called Yonatan Hun in public or if he did it for some other reason. Because on social media he’s still using his old name.

Haaretz also explained where the new name comes from. Yonatan is after his uncle Yonatan, also called Yoni Netanyahu. He was Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother who died in 1976 during the famous Operation Entebbe in Uganda when they went to rescue hostages.

And Hun was actually his grandfather’s original last name. His grandfather was Shmuel Ben-Artzi. He was born Samuel Hun and later changed it to a more Hebrew version.

Apparently Yair has been using “Hun” on different social media profiles for years now. So maybe he just made it official.

Yair is 34 and he’s known as a right-wing activist and podcaster. He’s been living in Florida in the US for the past few years. He’s also gotten attention for some controversial posts online and for his connections with far-right figures in Europe and the US.

The report also mentioned that Benjamin Netanyahu’s younger son Avner did something similar before. After buying an apartment in London, property records listed him as Avi Segal. That was his grandmother’s maiden name. Avner said last year that he changed it because of security concerns while he was studying in the UK.

And even Benjamin Netanyahu himself changed his name back in the 1970s. When he was studying at MIT in the US he went by Ben Nitai. He later said he did it so Americans could pronounce it more easily.