# People best known as double-name types **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 1, 2014, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117 "2014-10-01T19:24:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/21 "2014-10-01T21:30:37Z")
Edgar Rice Burroughs ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/22 "2014-10-01T22:24:55Z")
Olivia Newton-John Irene and Pierre Joliet-Curie Pierre Elliot Trudeau ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/23 "2014-10-01T22:57:17Z")
William Jennings Bryan Philip Seymour Hoffman David Lee Roth ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/24 "2014-10-01T23:02:19Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > \<\< snipped \>\> > Florence Foster Jenkins. The voice of an angel – of death! ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/25 "2014-10-01T23:23:29Z")
Lee J. Cobb R. Lee Ermey Elizabeth Barrett Browning Edward G. Robinson Sue Ane Langdon ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/26 "2014-10-01T23:53:31Z")
James Clerk Maxwell (renowned equationist) Gerard Manley Hopkins (poet and monk) Frederick Gowland Hopkins (pioneering biochemist, discoverer of vitamins, and a distant cousin of the above poet) Eric Frank Russell (science fiction author) James Mark Baldwin (early American psychologist) John Broadus Watson (another very influential American psychologist, who got the job of the one above after Baldwin was caught in a raid on a negro brothel, and then lost it again for shagging his grad student) John Julius Norwich (aristocratic historian and broadcaster, Lord kNickers Off Ready When I Come Home) David Lloyd-George (one of Britain’s most important 20th century politicians, last Liberal UK Prime Minister) Robin Wright-Penn (best thing to do with a pen) Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English poet and philosophotaster) Samuel Coleridge Taylor (African-American composer, very much to be confused with the above) John Stewart Mill (insufficiently obscure philosopher) Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (renowned mongoose) And, for the win: Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Le Chevalier de Lamarck (evolutionary theorist) ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/27 "2014-10-01T23:56:33Z")
An aside: anyone interested in the many famous people who have dropped or changed their first/given names might find [this](http://www.amazon.com/Name-Droppers-Compendium-Notable-Individuals-Changed-ebook/dp/B00LMF0FZW/) an amusing read. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/28 "2014-10-01T23:59:39Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > And, for the win: Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Le Chevalier de Lamarck (evolutionary theorist) Not even. Try Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/29 "2014-10-02T00:04:21Z")
Njtt: What do you have against Mill? Contributions:.Florence Griffith Joyner and her sister-in-law Jackie Joyner Kersee. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/30 "2014-10-02T01:45:18Z")
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Charles Nelson Reilly ---
**Author:** ![FaerieBeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@FaerieBeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FaerieBeth)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/31 "2014-10-02T01:50:45Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (renowned mongoose) I loved this. Plus, renowned mongoose sounds so impressive. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ee7513/32.png) [@Mona\_Lott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lott)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/32 "2014-10-02T02:04:26Z")
Mary Tyler Moore ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/33 "2014-10-02T02:26:33Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > There’s the theory that assassins and mass murderers often come to be known by their full names (e.g. John Wayne Gacy, a bunch of others I can’t think of now). I once read an explanation for this theory, but that too is escaping me at the moment. It’s because assassins and mass murderers become famous due to their crimes. Which means they’re usually being identified to the media from police statements. And identifying suspects by their full legal name is standard police procedure. So the family and friends who knew Lee Oswald before November 22, 1963 didn’t use his middle name. But all the rest of us first heard about him from police reports saying Lee Harvey Oswald had shot the President. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/34 "2014-10-02T02:31:43Z")
Courtney Cox Arquette Courtney Thorn-Smith Jamie Lee Curtis Meredith Baxter-Birney Rachael Leigh Cook ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/35 "2014-10-02T03:45:23Z")
One of the most important: Jerry Lee Lewis ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/36 "2014-10-02T04:08:50Z")
> [@rjk](#): > > One of the most important: > > Jerry Lee Lewis Indeed. Made me think we haven’t mentioned Tommy Lee Jones! Sugar Ray Leonard Sugar Ray Robinson Billy Ray Cyrus ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/37 "2014-10-02T06:59:03Z")
Okay, then, why is this so common? And where does the “first” or “given” name end, and the “family name” or “surname” begin? Often, the second and third of the three names are treated together as the “last name”. For example, David Lloyd George’s surname was [Lloyd George](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lloyd_George) > [@](#): > > In this name, the family name is Lloyd George, not George. Arthur Conan Doyle is often referred to as [Conan Doyle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Conan_Doyle), as if that is his last name. Apparently, his last name was just Doyle, although at some point he began using Conan Doyle as if it were his last name. > [@](#): > > Steven Doyle, editor of the Baker Street Journal, has written, “Conan was Arthur’s middle name. Shortly after he graduated from high school he began using Conan as a sort of surname. But technically his last name is simply ‘Doyle’.”[18] When knighted he was gazetted as Doyle, not under the compound Conan Doyle.[19] Nevertheless, the actual use of a compound surname is demonstrated by the fact that Doyle’s second wife was known as “Jean Conan Doyle” rather than “Jean Doyle”. I’ve often seen George Bernard Shaw referred to as Bernard Shaw as if that were his last name, although I don’t see anything in his [wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw) to support that. It seems very common for people to have a two-part surname, judging by how often I see names used that way in news articles. And that’s not even counting Spanish or Latin American people with names in the Hispanic style. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/38 "2014-10-02T07:20:32Z")
John Paul Jones ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/39 "2014-10-02T12:33:36Z")
James Fenimore Cooper Boutros Boutros-Ghali Jennifer Love Hewitt Lisa Marie Presley Sandra Day O’Connor ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117/40 "2014-10-02T12:42:44Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Sugar Ray Leonard > Sugar Ray Robinson > Billy Ray Cyrus Stevie Ray Vaughan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-best-known-as-double-name-types/700117.md?page=3)