One of my nephews has this sort of name, so that got me thinking…
It seems to me that [?]J, as a name, only has certain letters for which it’s relatively common: AJ, BJ, CJ, DJ, JJ, KJ, MJ, PJ, RJ, TJ. Why not any of the others? Some of them, I can understand as just not starting many first names (like X), but there are plenty of S names, so why don’t I hear about more SJ’s?
(Note that I’m not sure if it makes a difference if we’re talking about people who are named this because their middle name begins with J — which may make for a different discussion because that seems to be one of the few middle initials that get this treatment — or because they’re a Junior.)
OJ has gotten a lot of bad press.
Name your kid FJ and everybody’s going to make boat jokes.
I’ve known several VJ’s as consultants. Okay, they were actually Vijay, but you get the idea.
Yes I’m aware you’re asking about how common it is, but really do you know a lot of people with these names? Do you know even 4 people who are JJ’s for example? I doubt you have a big enough sample to make the statement you do.
I know someone whose birth first name was Andrej. He was Yugoslav born (remember when there was a Yugoslavia?) He had no middle name. So when naturalized as a US citizen, they asked him if he wished to Americanize his name. Yes, he wanted to change it to Andre J, but they wouldn’t permit it because J wasn’t a proper name. He pointed that Harry S Truman had a single letter name. They still wouldn’t allow it, but decided that if he knew that much US history, they would waive the usual examination. So he is still Andrej.
My hypothesis is that combinations where the pronunciation of the first letter ends with a vowel sound are more euphonious. So, BJ, DJ, and JJ sound better than FJ, HJ, or SJ.
Does anyone have access to a large enough and searchable (by first name) database, which uses preferred name rather than legal name? We could at least begin to test this. My (large) company’s e-mail directory would be good, but it isn’t searchable by first name.
Huh. I didn’t think the US had these sort of naming restrictions. Does this only apply to “naturalized names” or can you really not name your child, say, “G” if you wanted to?
When my older son was born, we gave him an 8-letter first name and we had a hyphenated last name which made for a very long name for the child. We decided to forego a middle name for that reason.
Well, Gawd help us all if we don’t fill in all the blanks in all the forms required by our zealous bureaucracy. We were told we had to put something in the middle name box, so my husband, seeing my Gucci handbag with the “G” logo on it, put down a “G”. My son got a middle initial and the bureaucracy was satisfied.
Flash forward 5 years to registration for kindergarten. This bunch of bureaucrats told us he had to have a middle name, not just an initial. They had no provisions for an initial in their rule book. So we had to hire an attorney and file for a name change, giving my son a middle name. Since he already had the “G”, he now has the middle name of Guy. It was the shortest G name we could think of.
Even the US Army could handle this during WWII. It’s hard to imagine something more bureaucratic than that. If you have just a middle initial say J they’d put J NMN in for a middle name NMN standing for no middle name. If you have no middle initial they’d put in NMI.
My nephew actually has no first name. He’s named after his father; he has the same middle name by which he goes. His first name is is just one letter, his father’s first initial. I remember when he was named telling my sister, just wait until he has to fill out a form calling for first name middle initial.
The U.S. doesn’t have naming restrictions. The problem is that immigration officials have a lot of power that’s very difficult to challenge unless you’re willing to take a big risk.
I’m a JJ, for real. I was in a 2nd grade class with two other Jessicas with the same last initial so we became Jessica B, Jessi B and JJ B. I tried to shake it in middle school but it’s still my name 30 years later.
In my current social group we had Jesse (a guy) who dated Jessica, and he lived with Jessi (short for Jessica) and there was also me (already with JJ) and a sometimes-friend who went by Jess (also short for Jessica). There was also a tangental friend (friend of the sometimes-friend) by the name of Jennifer J., who apparently was sometimes called JJ and I’m told we were often confused.
The solution to this problem of Jesse living with Jessi is that Jesse became J. Or often “Jeh.”
Lucky for us, our other good friend Jason moved away. Cuz you know “Jay” can be short for “Jason” and parties would have just been awful.
Anyway, in my circle, the nickname “J” is imperative because everyone’s name starts with J and once you go through the variations on Jessicas, Jennifers, Jasons and Jamies you’re out of things to call people!
My dad had no middle name. It caused no problems at all when we emigrated from the UK to Canada.
My grandfather stopped at the pub (in Scotland) on the way to register my dad’s birth and forgot the middle name! So, he never got one. Personally, I fucking love that story. My dad was born in 1934.
