CHARLOTTE — From the time Princely Umanmielen was born, he's known who he was—the grandson of a chief; his dad gave him a name that made sure he'd remember.

"My dad wants to keep it alive, so he named all his kids Prince something," Umanmielen first shared back in April after the Panthers drafted the pass-rusher out of Ole Miss.

"I'm Princely, little brother is Princewill, and then the last one is Princeton…my parents still get confused," he laughed. "Call for one and everybody comes."

But it's a small price to pay for the brothers never to forget their lineage.

Umanmielen was born in Lagos, Nigeria, a part of the Benin people from the nearby Edo tribe. The Edo tribe has had a presence in Nigeria for centuries and boasts over 10,000,000 descendants to date. Before Nigeria was colonized, the Edo people were factions of tribes throughout the coastal area. Those are still represented today in areas of local government.

The leader of one of those tribes was Umanmielen's grandfather.

Princely admits he's fuzzy on some of the details; his grandfather passed away when he was a baby, and shortly after, when he was around three years old, his parents migrated with their three sons to America. Life changed, priorities and influence shifted, and he's only been able to return to Africa once, but not yet to Nigeria.

"I want to go back. I've never had the funds to go back. Maybe now," said the third-rounder.

But through it all, he has held on to his heritage in different ways, even something as simple as the profile picture on his social media, which depicts a famous Edo art piece, the mask of the Queen Mother Idia. And through it all, his name has been a reminder that he is a progeny. So when he got his first sack in college—playing with the Gators at that time against Georgia—a celebration he hadn't thought of before just naturally came out; crowning the Prince.

"It was an impulsive," Umanmielen admitted. "Like I know I've seen LeBron do it before, but mine has a different meaning, obviously, but yeah, it was just something that I just did off the fly."

And then on Sunday, in the Panthers' Week 2 matchup against the Cardinals, Umanmielen picked up his first career NFL sack, bringing down Kyler Murray. The celebration was a given, another crowning.

"First, I just prayed and thanked God, and then I just got up and put a little crown on my head," Umanmielen explained Sunday following the game.

When the Panthers drafted Umanmielen, following a 10.5-sack season his final year in college, it was with hopes he could bring that same ability and presence to the defensive front, along with fellow rookie Nic Scourton. The two are playing behind and in rotation with veterans D.J. Wonnum and Patrick Jones II, and already, Carolina is getting peeks at what they felt Umanmielen could be.

"Very, very good pass rusher," defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero said of his rookie this week.

"He had a lot of pass rush production in college, and so that's what we were hoping to get, and he's been working tirelessly at it. And coach Andrew Carter and the whole staff have just done a heck of a job with him, and he's done a good job these first couple of weeks. But like all of us coaches and players, we all need to be better and, you know, he falls into that category as well."

As Umanmielen works to get better, more sacks should follow. With them, there is the possibility of doing something different.

"From time to time, I might do a little—I've seen a fan say I look like the Super Saiyan and Goku (from Dragon Ball Z) because of my hair," said Umanmielen, who died his hair ahead of the Cardinals game. But even that could change, as he told reporters in Arizona, "I just be bored. I might switch it up sooner or later, but I might wake up bored again, and it'll be blue one day."

But while his look might change, and the sack celebration see tweaks here and there, one element that will always be present is intrinsic to who Princely Umanmielen is; the forever Prince, now residing in the Queen City.