My middle name is my Grandmother’s first name. She never used it because she hated it, and she spelt it differently to the way it is in my name. The name she actually used (her own middle) would have worked perfectly well and had more Scottish naming history behind it. Seems like an odd decision really.
“I’m going to name my daughter after you!”
“Oh, wonderful! I’m so glad to see the traditions upheld.”
“No, not that name. I’m going to use the name you hate and then I’m going to spell it incorrectly.”
“Okaaay…”
Might depend on which Catholic tradition I suppose?
In the UK and Ireland (and most countries?) adding a middle name after the first year of birth requires a change of name via deed poll, so they’re almost always used informally. They don’t really count as middle names.
And there are tons and tons of Irish women called Mary Claire, Mary Eve, etc (not many Mary Etcs though). They’re separate names, not like the Mary-Claire! you might have heard in the US South-West a generation or two ago. One of my schoolfriends had a mother (obvs) and three or four aunts, all named Mary, but only the last Mary was actually Mary. Kinda like how a lot of Muslim boys in the UK now are named Mohammed but generally go by their middle name.
It could ( which is why I put “Catholic” in quotes) but it could also be that it was simply the custom of that poster’s in-laws.
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My middle name is just my dad’s nickname somewhat anglicized: Jack (everyone calls him Jacek. The name Jacek actually translates to the male name Hyacinth, as in St. Hyacinth or Sw. Jacek in Polish. I definitely prefer that they went with Jack.) My brother also has a middle name, probably named after one of my dad’s friends, though I don’t know the source of it. We’re Catholic, and it was customary for every kid to get a middle name at birth at least in our tradition.
Oh, I guess we also have confirmation names, but we’ve never used that in any sort of official capacity. I had to actually just think about what my confirmation name was, as nobody I know really seems to keep track of it except for confirmation.
My kids have middle names that are the same and based on a family surname from a couple generations back.
My grandmother had a brother James, always called “Jim”, so my father was named Jimmy so that his call name and actual name would be the same.
My first name is made up of my parents middle names, and the one from my mother she got from her mother (both middle names) who got it from her mother (first name).
My original middle name is the masculine spelling of a not so common (in the U.S.) French name. When I got married, I put my maiden name as a second middle name and took over my husband’s last name. I’m not a big fan of my maiden name but didn’t want to dump it.
I’m the youngest of four and the only boy. I don’t have a middle name but I am a junior. My two oldest sisters don’t have middle names either. Strangely, the youngest of the three was supposed to have a middle name but my father screwed up on the birth certificate and combined first and middle name into one long first name. Think naming your kid Sarahlee when you meant it to be Sarah Lee.
My wife’s situation is even worse. Not only does she not have a middle name, but her first name is normally a diminutive of a longer, more “formal” name.
The significance of my middle name is, it’s the name I go by. It’s not this unused piece of name that parents fill with odd stuff, which seems to be what this poll is getting at.
My brother was born first, and my mom wanted my dad to go ahead and choose a name that was meaningful to him. When I was born, my father insisted on returning the favor, and he left it completely up to my mother. She chose “Jasmine” simply because she loved the name, but she wanted to be playful and unique with a middle name, so she chose “Turquoise”. So, I am Jasmine Turquoise.
I have a middle name. My whole life I was never curious about why my middle name is my middle name. Thanks to this thread I have been wondering, but, my parents are both gone and I guess I’ll never know.
I get that, too - my first name is five letters and two syllables. People keep trying to make it longer than it is. It’s like if you named a kid “Beth”, just “Beth”, and people kept trying to call her “Elizabeth” and asking her what “Beth” is short for. It’s not short for anything, it is what it is.
My middle name is the first name of my Mom’s maid of honor at her wedding, she passed away before I was born.
My son’s middle name is my Dad’s name which also happened to be my ex-husband’s middle name.
I have a cousin who’s middle name is my Aunt’s maiden name.
My middle name is McCarty, from a Fairfax, Virginia family that married into my grandmother’s back in the late 18th century. It’s been a popular middle name in my family ever since, including me and my nephew. Why that name caught on when there were so many other possibilities, I’m not sure.
When I was a kid in the sixties, I lied and told my friends my middle name was McCartney, in the hope that they’d think I was related to a Beatle.
Unrelated given name but there’s a story behind it. My parents were convinced that I was going to be a boy and only had boy names picked out. They didn’t do ultrasounds to determine boy/girl back when I was born. So my parents were surprised when I was not a boy and had to scramble to come up with a name.
I don’t know where they got my (fairly common for the time) first name from. I was born very early in the morning just as the sun was coming up so my middle name is Dawn.
They were better prepared with my sister. Her middle name is the same as my dad’s mom and mom’s favorite aunt’s middle name and my sister later gave that same middle name to her oldest daughter.
