Atticus Finch, a student at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin.

Years before he decided to study law, Atticus Finch had the name for it.

Finch, a first-year student at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, is truly named Atticus Finch, after the lawyer in Harper Lee's bestseller "To Kill a Mockingbird." With his parents' approval, Finch went to court at age 8 to change his given name of Angus Finch to Atticus Finch.

Finch, a recent graduate of Texas State University in San Marcos, said he read the novel at age 7, which turned out to be a fortuitous decision, because he had issues with his given name of Angus.

He had just moved to a new school, and Finch said that was around the time when McDonald's started marketing Angus beef burgers.

"It wasn't a good time to be a kid changing schools with a name of Angus in Texas," he said.

Reading the novel gave Finch the idea, and his parents—both lawyers—were willing to consider allowing their son to change his name if he agreed to test drive Atticus Finch for a year.

"I used Atticus as much as I could. Even though my parents did all of the legal work, I had to show up in court and explain to the judge [that] I wasn't running from the law," Finch recalls of that court hearing when he was a child.

Finch said the fictional Atticus Finch inspired him, because of the respect the character commanded in the book and movie, and his dedication to justice. It also helped that both of Finch's parents were lawyers, he said.

Ian Finch is a chambers attorney at the 14th Texas Court of Appeals in Houston, and Matthew Finch has retired from the practice of law and writes Dungeons & Dragons books.

Matthew Finch said it's "fantastic" that their son was so inspired by the literary Atticus Finch that he decided to adopt his name.

Over the years, Atticus Finch said, he's been the butt of some jokes because of his name. That's changed since he started law school.

"The jokes definitely got better," he said.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Finch's parents. He has two fathers.