# Maiden names as son's middle names **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 19, 2011, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504 "2011-05-19T21:28:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/21 "2011-05-20T02:08:06Z")
My middle name is my grandmother’s maiden name. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/22 "2011-05-20T02:28:27Z")
I knew a girl from HS who used her maiden name as her son’s FIRST name- Drage. Very unique name for a kid. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/23 "2011-05-20T03:22:05Z")
> [@Claire\_Beauchamp](#): > > It’s fairly common for boys and girls in the South, especially among the upper classes. I believe it’s also common among the eastern upper class; for example Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, John Pierpont Morgan, and Henry Cabot Lodge. It’s as if to say, “Our son represents a union of the glorious Aldrich and Rockefeller dynasties, and both must be commemorated in his name.” ---
**Author:** ![BetsQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BetsQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BetsQ)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/24 "2011-05-20T03:34:56Z")
My kids both have my last name as their middle names. I was basically grumpy that they were getting Mr.Q’s last name - I wanted mine to be in there somewhere, too. My SIL did the same thing for pretty much the same reason. It’s pretty common in Mr.Q’s Southern, upper class family, but it’s unheard of in my not-so-upper class, Midwestern family. I know several people who have given their kids their maiden/last names as first names, too. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/25 "2011-05-20T03:54:26Z")
I gave my son my last name (at the time) as his middle, but it’s a very common boy’s name anyhow. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/26 "2011-05-20T04:13:30Z")
My middle name is my Mother’s middle name. They never said anything beyond that they liked it, but I don’t think it was accidental. To the ongoing list we can add Clark Kent. ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/27 "2011-05-20T05:27:42Z")
My dad fits in the group too - Scottish mother and named in the early '40s, don’t know about his brothers & sisters. My mother and her sister both have a couple of historic family names as middle names. ---
**Author:** ![Gleena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b3f665/32.png) [@Gleena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gleena)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/28 "2011-05-20T05:58:09Z")
My son’s middle name is my maiden name. Although I divorced his father and reverted to my maiden name, so now his middle name is my last name. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/29 "2011-05-20T11:46:50Z")
> [@chizzuk](#): > > My brother has my grandmother’s maiden name as his middle name. I have my mom’s. > > I personally dislike it and wish I had a different middle name, but I understand why it was done. Same for me except I don’t really mind my middle name. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/30 "2011-05-20T14:28:16Z")
My sister and I have our mother’s maiden name as our middle name, but our brother has our father’s mother’s maiden name as his. My mother was a Laird and my father’s mother was a Munro. I have the impression it was quite a common tradition to pass down names in this way in the east of Scotland. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/31 "2011-05-20T14:36:21Z")
My brother-in-law has this. It for the already cited reason that the name isn’t going to propagate otherwise. Presumably when my husband was born (7 years earlier) there was still a chance that his uncle would have a son. He didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/32 "2011-05-20T14:37:09Z")
How about maiden names as son’s first names: Clark Kent. ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/33 "2011-05-20T14:43:57Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Seems to be a Presidential thing. My paternal grandfather was never president, and not American. I don’t think it was a longstanding family tradition because neither of his sons has his mother’s maiden name as a middle name. My father’s middle name is after a president, though… My sister’s middle name is our great-grandmother’s maiden name. It was definitely done to preserve that name as she’d had only daughter’s. My mother has a first cousin who has it as his middle name for the same reason. > [@Meurglys](#): > > My sister and I have our mother’s maiden name as our middle name, but our brother has our father’s mother’s maiden name as his. My mother was a Laird and my father’s mother was a Munro. > **I have the impression it was quite a common tradition to pass down names in this way in the east of Scotland**. That would make sense in my grandfather’s case, as that’s where his parents were born. He was born in Nova Scotia. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/34 "2011-05-20T14:47:54Z")
Both my father and my younger brother qualify for this distinction, along with one of my uncles. At least one of my close friends as a kid had his mother’s maiden name as his middle name. Not uncommon at all where I come from. It’s not all that far from the hyphenated names in other countries, to give Mama a share of the credit for the name(s) being carried further. One of my kids carries his maternal grandmother’s maiden name as a middle name. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/35 "2011-05-20T15:43:05Z")
My son, my daughter and my wife all have her maiden name as their middle name. I also offered to change my middle name to her maiden name but she felt that would have been odd and possibly disrespectful to my grandfather, whose first name became my middle name. As a side note, she comes from a culture where they don’t have middle names. ---
**Author:** ![Caricci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Caricci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caricci)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/36 "2011-05-20T15:46:07Z")
It’s a tradition I love, but I didn’t do it because my maiden name is Frobig and my mom’s is Munch. My father’s middle name is Zobel though; I guess that grandma was a bit more hardcore about it than me. Actually, the other grandmother had a son with the middle name “Kroft”. Kinda weird in both cases. My husband is Italian-American and it doesn’t seem to be at all common in that culture so we didn’t use Russo or anything. What we did use is Wilson, after Brian Wilson and the Wilson sisters of Heart. My husband loves them and I didn’t allow him to name our son Benito so it seemed like a good solution. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/37 "2011-05-20T15:47:04Z")
My mom has two sisters, and all of them used variations of their maiden name and their parents’ names for their children’s middle names. All three of them changed their last names when they married, so this was a nice way of carrying on the family name. It can be oddly painful to know that you’re the last generation to have your family name. One of my friends legally changed her middle name to her maiden name when she married, because she and her sister are literally the last people in the United States with that particular name. ---
**Author:** ![Ludy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Ludy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludy)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/38 "2011-05-20T16:13:27Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > My middle name is my mom’s last name. I wouldn’t call it her “maiden” name, though, because she never took my dad’s name when they got married. Same for me, and, well same for my daughter. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/39 "2011-05-20T16:50:56Z")
US Grant’s original name was Hiram Ulysses Grant. When applied for West Point the congressman who recommended him thought Ulysses was his first name since that is what he went by. He did not know Grant’s middle name but assumed it was Simpson because that is what his mother’s maiden name was. So the practice was common enough that at one time it would the most likely guess that your middle name was your mother’s maiden name. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Cloud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@Little\_Cloud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Cloud)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504/40 "2011-05-20T17:19:20Z")
I gave my middle son my maiden name as his middle one. I think it adds gravitas as well as keeping the name alive. I come from a proud family that traces back to the Mayflower in this country. Of course, now that he’s a teenager and doing his best to screw up, I don’t know if my ancestors would approve. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maiden-names-as-sons-middle-names/582504.md?page=3)