Absolute hijack of the hijack, I’m not even in the American continent. Come to my town any time you want and I’ll introduce you to several hundreds Anas, Anabeles (Anne Isabelle) and Ana Marías. St Anne is the patron saint, you see. Last year there wasn’t a single Ana or Ana-something registered but I know already three this year.
I call it the Elvis glut. Lisa Marie Presley, born Feb 1, 1968. I was born March 23, 1968. I am Lisa Marie. I had 7 other Lisa’s in my class one year. Most by far, were Lisa Marie. Lisa Michelle was fairly common. It was so bad we couldn’t use our middle names either and so I grew up being known as Lisa C.
My parents swear I wasn’t named after her. I don’t believe them. Now, amazingly, I am the only Lisa where I work. But typically, the Lisa’s I meet are also born around the same time.
Blame it on Memphis. 
My first name is Scott, and I don’t even have a middle name. (Has saved me hours in filling out forms. ) I’ve actually never known a middle name Scott, but plenty of first name ones.
There was a New Yorker cartoon a while back, by Ziegler I think, which was a class picture with the caption “Scott Jennifer Scott Scott Jennifer …”
I can imagine that since Scott is such a short, simple, and elegant name, those stuck with rotten first names use it.
A few years ago, if I didn’t know the name of one of the male students in my labs, I’d just say “Ryan”. It usually worked.
As for middle names, I think what we’re seeing is names that were popular as first names two or three generations ago. Lots of folks have a middle name from one of their grandparents’ first names, and “Anne”, for instance, was a reasonably popular name among those aged to be grandparents or great-grandparents of the folks most people meet nowadays.
I don’t know how one would measure this. But a related point that occurs to me is that “Scott” is perhaps more likely than some other male given names to appear as a middle name, because “Scott” is also a (quite common) family name, and lots of parents use family names as middle names for their kids.
My anecdotal contribution:
- Two current friends go by Scott: one is first name, one is middle name.
- My sister has Ann for middle, my wife has Marie for middle.
My sister is named Ann Marie.
The Scotts that I knew growing up both were Scott by first name. The one that sits across from me at work also has Scott as a first name (I just asked him.)
Well, thanks to everyone for contributing. If the collective wisdom of this board can’t confirm my impression by now, then I probably am imagining things. Great Scott, another guy with Scott as his middle name!
I know one woman whose first name is Marie; I know one little girl whose middle name is Marie. I’m wracking my brains, but I don’t think I know a single Scott. :eek:
Don’t you mean Steve?
My real name is Scott and I get that all the time “uh, Steve, I mean, uh Scott?”
I know a lot of Scott’s - 3 here at my company with 40 employees, but we are all first-name Scott’s…
My son’s middle name is Scott - after me, natch, same as my middle name is my dad’s, via family tradition - but he goes by his first name…
My first name is Scott. My best friend’s last name is Scott.
We used to be roommates.
That made taking messages and getting mail interesting.