I’ve noticed that some people have gone down in history by three names. You may be uncertain who George Carver, James Cooper, John Jones, and Martin King are, but the names George Washington Carver, James Fenimore Cooper, John Paul Jones, and Martin Luther King certainly ring some bells. Here’s a list I’ve compiled, but I’m sure it’s very incomplete. I’m looking for additions.
John Quincy Adams
Louisa May Alcott
George Washington Carver
James Fenimore Cooper
Ralph Waldo Emerson
James Earl Jones
John Paul Jones
Tommy Lee Jones
Martin Luther King
Sugar Ray Leonard
Jerry Lee Lewis
Henry Cabot Lodge [1]
James Clerk Maxwell
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Robert Penn Warren
Billy Dee Williams
In addition, there’s a special category three name people: high-profile assassins who, because of the way they’re reported in the press, virtually always are known by their full name: John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman, James Earl Ray. But not all are. Jack Ruby, for example, is not.
Before you make a suggestion, a couple rules. (1) The person must be known almost exclusingly by three names or, if who is being talked about is established, by one name. So even though most people know Franklin Roosevelt’s middle name is Delano, he doesn’t qualify. (2) Any hyphenated names are considered a single name. So Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Murray Gell-Mann are right out.
[1] Two of them, grandfather and grandson (Jr.)
William Henry Harrison
Grover Cleveland Alexander
John Kimura Parker
Johann Sebastien Bach
Johann Christian Bach
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Edward Allen Poe
Ada Louise Huxtable
Arthur Conan Doyle
Neither of those are virtually always refered to with three names. I suspect a number of others suggested are the same, but I haven’t checked them out.