Update List Item with Powershell Begets Strange Return

On my portal I have a list with columns for First Name Last Name and Account where Account contains usernames.

So I have this function which reads through my list (it connects fine, it reads the list items), but it won't match correctly.

The write-host reports this:

Name=1;#My First Name;#1;My Last Name

Why is it adding the ;#1 to the return values? They clearly are not in the list values.

Here is my function:

function portal_updateMemberUsername([string]$whatlastname, $whatfirstname, $whatusername){
    $web = Get-SPWeb $portal_url
    #Get the SPList object to retrieve the list
    $list = $web.Lists[$portal_list]

    #Get all items in this list and save them to a variable
    $items = $list.items

    #Go through all items
    foreach($item in $items){
        write-host "Name= " $item["First Name"] $item["Last Name"]  #<----HERE
        if($item["Last Name"] -eq $whatlastname -and $item["First Name"] -eq $whatfirstname){
            [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPUser]$whatusername= $web.EnsureUser($whatusername)   
            $item["Account"] =  $whatusername
            $item.Update()
        }
    }
}

portal_updateMemberUsername $lastname $firstname $logonname