My daughter’s middle name is Jane after a dear friend’s mother who died of breast cancer. She was widely admired in our local community. My husband wanted Jade but I pointed out it was used for a long time as a slang word for prostitute and talked him out of it.
“Claire,” because it’s pretty.
No kids here, but my middle name is my mother’s Confirmation name. It is the feminization of the name of the saint she considers her patron saint.
No middle name at all.
Japanese people have by law one name only. You can have more names but on the Japanese registry it will all be runtogetherasonelongname. Yuck. And they WILL be called bytherunonname at school as another “half” kid in our school can testify to…
So as my husband only has the one name, and I also have only one name despite being a Brit (Dad was a teacher and couldn’t come up with two names that didn’t conjure horrible students past!) so my kids only have one name each.
A bit sad, really but much more practical.
I have two middle names, because I was named after a cousin who died tragically not long before I was born. My parents gave me his three names and then just added our family name to the end. (My first name is William, so my initials look like a radio station callsign). Most standardized forms in the U.S. only permit one middle name, alas. My sister was always a bit envious, so she gave her kids two middle names each. Lately they’ve taken to adding her maiden name to the mix, too (don’t know if that’s under orders, or by their own decision), leaving them each with five names!
My son’s middle name is Duncan, and I chose it because I liked how it flowed with his first name, as well as it being a family name (I have a Great Uncle and an Uncle who are named that).
When I was picking names, I chose Siobhan as a middle name for a girl. Nothing familial about that one, but I love it.
My oldest daughter’s middle name was my wife’s first name, since her family has a tradition of swapping this name between first and middle every generation. I won’t give it, since there are only two people, at most, with this name in the country.
My second daughter got my wife’s maiden name.
Neither my brother nor I have middle names, so I had no preferences in this matter.
My son’s middle name is Gal. We chose it for a number of reasons:
Most importantly, it’s pretty and it flows well with his first name.
Second of all, it gives him the initials R.G., which I like. His first name is Raphael, and I secretly hope that one day he’ll go by “Raffi G.”
Third of all, because “gal” is Hebrew for “wave.” A month before my son was born, my sister narrowly survived being crushed by a tsunami (*the *tsunami) while vacationing in southeastern India. I guess I thought it would be a cool tribute.
My 3 daughters all have English first names, and their middle name is actually their entire Chinese name. For example, Jacqueline Caoyutian Lastname is my oldest, Audrey Caoyuqing Lastname is twin A, and Serena Caoyuling Lastname is twin B.
Us Catholics can’t help it! After Confirmation we’ve got two middle names.
Ann. I don’t recall exactly, but we were thinking of giving her a somewhat unusual name and wanted something plain for a middle name so she could use that if she hated it. It may have been influenced by the Anne McCaffrey, who we were reading at the time.
Our first son has his dad’s name for a middle name. Our second son has my deceased brother’s name for a middle name.
If/When we have a girl, her middle name will be Ellen. That’s my middle name, and it goes back 5-6 generations.
Son: Seigfried. My husband’s middle name and FIL’s name.
Daughter: O’Hara. My grandmother’s maiden name.
No we don’t. I only have a name. Having a four-word firstname is complicated enough without adding more words!
Neither of the Nephews have a middle name, nor a multi-word firstname. The Nephew is a Mark, which is the first of his maternal grandfather’s names, stuck there by the baptising priest against his parents’ wishes and never used: not even the kid’s father (my brother) knew about this being his FiL’s firstname until the kid was being held over the baptismal waters. This almost caused my mother to have an apoplexy right there in church, as she’d been campaigning to have the kid named after Dad (who was already dead and politely refrained from giving his opinion).
The Niece is a Paula. They told names to The Nephew; the ones he liked most were Carla and Paula. Carla got vetoed by SiL as it’s the name of a classmate of his which is quite violent. Paula was acceptable plus, since the fourth one of Dad’s names was Paul (and the third Peter, due to his having been born on the feast of Sts Peter and Paul), my brother feels like it sort of balances things.
So you didn’t take a Confirmation name? Did you elect one of your existing names as your Confirmation name?
My son’s middle name is Nmi, after his dad, who has no middle initial.
My daughter’s middle name is Jones. Right around the time we got married, her dad and I decided if we ever had a girl we’d name her Article Jones, just because we liked the way it sounds.
Eventually we changed our minds about Article, but kept Jones. We usually call her by her first name, but sometimes she’s Miss Jones.
My older son’s middle name is George, after my husband’s much-loved maternal grandfather
My younger son’s is Marc, after my husband’s much-loved maternal uncle.
I thought they were great, and didn’t mind that they were his family names, since I talked him into the first names. The older is Aaron George, and the younger is Benjamin Marc, the Benjamin for Benjamin Franklin. Aaron likes to say that he is named for both his great grandfather and George Washington, even though that wasn’t our intention. But we’re cool with that.
My son’s middle name is Thomas, after my grandfather. He’s a well-loved guy, my Papa – there are a lot of little Thomases named after him.
Celeste because it’s a beautiful name and she was a beautiful baby,
and Rose, a family name ( a favorite aunt) she was also a beautiful baby 
Both of my children have middle names after stars, because we’re geeks that way. Dorothy Maia and Howard Antares.