It’s this kind of thing that makes me glad that I don’t have a middle name. Makes life much easier.
Filling out “official” paperwork is a PITA, though. I’ve had people practically pick fights with me because the “middle initial” box is left empty. “You HAVE to have a middle name! It’s the LAW!”. Um, no. On one or two occasions I’ve discovered that someone’s data entry skills have given me the middle initial “X” :rolleyes:
Is it really that much of a pain? I’ve never liked my middle name and I’ve been leaving it off of official forms for years.
I think: you’re worrying about your second son’s name before your first son is even born?
And my second thought is: you must be related to my wife.
I agree. If you want to go wild and crazy with a kid’s name, the middle name is the place to do it. That’s what middle names are for.
My friend Elmo Jones, named after his uncle Elmo “Butch” *Jones *would probably asked you to reconsider.
I think that’s okay, so long as the first or surname isn’t “Daniel.”
Thanks so much for all the replies. We are very happy with Marley, so I wasn’t asking for opinions on that, but I appreciate all feedback.
He is going to speak French and English from birth so hopefully it won’t be too long until he can pronounce it (his father, who is African, speaks a lot of languages, including French, so he speaks to my womb in various languages 
).
Yay! Thanks for the Marley input. He will indeed be named after Bob Marley. The other reason is we really like the name. It doesn’t bother us in the least that girls can also be named Marley. And the dog thing – what is that, a movie? I’ve never even heard of it and I’m sure, as you say, it will go the way of all the earth long before the legacy of Bob.
I’m especially glad that people think, as I do, that the middle name is not all that important, in the sense that though you may ruin your kid’s life somehow, it won’t be through his middle name.
Well, it IS possible that we will name the FIRST one Marley, so it could be relevant soon. And for the record, my husband is equally interested in this issue.
Oh, and about the Dickens thing, that was the first thing my mother mentioned, too, but that doesn’t bother us either.
Two data points from my nuclear family, both of which suggest that you can give a middle name of “throatwarblermangrove” if you like and no one will care:
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My son. He has my last name, so his middle name is his father’s last name, which is a somewhat hard-to-spell-and-pronounce, not terribly euphonious word. This has caused zero trouble in the past 10 years.
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Me! I don’t have a middle name, just an initial - like Harry S Truman. This has been a very, very minor problem about twice in the last 49 years, when some petty bureaucrat wouldn’t accept an “S” and insisted on me “spelling out” my middle name.
I finally started using my mother’s maiden name as a middle name because it is incredibly unusual (also hard to spell and pronounce) in order to distinguish myself from the hundreds of thousands of other people with my first and last name (which is along the lines of “David Brown” or “Mary White”). Again - no problems.
A ridiculous name is less ridiculous when it’s a family name given to honour a much loved relative. Godfroy isn’t ridiculous in any case, just a little different. And middles names are fair game - you can use names that you’d never even consider as first names because they rarely come up.
I think it’s lovely to honour the grandfathers this way. As I’ve said before, I have a middle name that I dislike and I can’t even take consolation that it’s after anyone special to my family.
My first name is unpronounceable to most Americans as is my middle name (it’s French). It has not been a problem and while it was a bit annoying when I was younger, now I really like it.
How could a thread like this not link to the Baby Name Wizared? Take a quick gander, and you’ll see that since the eighties, “Marley” has shot up in popularity. Note, though, that there is no entry for boys, just girls.
Okay, that makes a huge difference.
As I’ve said to other people considering the name for their kids - use it in good health! But for the record, I’ll be hoping you have a girl. 
Nothing personal.
Wow. I was sure I had checked that site recently enough to notice something like that, but I hadn’t.
I have a very different first name and a gawdawful middle name (after both my grandmothers). It’s lots of laughs if anyone hears it, but it rarely comes up. In fact, if you were to offer my husband $2m if he could tell you my middle name (and you could give him a good hour to think about it), I guarantee he would not be $2m richer at the end of that hour.
I don’t think that family names ever make bad middle names. People usually like the history and family connection.
Middle names make as much of an impact as the bearer wants. I have two middle names and for the longest no one had a clue what it was. When I got to college there was someone else with my (unique to Americans) first name and (normal but not common) last name. Since we spelled both names the same way people started to calling me by my middle name.
I have an unusual sounding middle name too. The spelling looks simple enough, but it’s not pronounced the way it’s spelled. It’s the middle name that is passed on to the eldest daughter on my mother’s side of the family and has been for generations. My mother comes from Germany.
No one on this side of the pond can pronounce it correctly, but it’s rarely an issue. So, go with Godfrey if it suits you and your family.
Other than having to fill out forms (where pronunciation is not an issue), I think my middle name was used once. That one time was when I graduated high school.
Middle names are supposed to be weird. And I think Godfroy is a nice name.
Plus, you never really know what may happen. My great-grandfather was given an extremely normal first name and a bizarro family-heritage middle name. He dropped the first name and named his eldest son bizarroname junior.
I strongly second this… thank God my parents realized (almost too late) what my initials would have been had they gone with their first choice of middle names. At work nobody knows my middle name, but the standard is to initial lots of things with all three initials. Let’s just say if my parents hadn’t thought to check the initials, I would either not initial things correctly, or be up on obsecenity/harassment charges.
And you’re going to have to make sure the initials are OK in both English and French.
eh? 
Is that a joke about my poor grammatical phrasing?