Alfred Russel Wallace
Henry Walter Bates
Thomas Henry Huxley
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (de Chardin being a single name)
Evolutionists
OK, you guys are not actually following the OP very well. I asked about people who were virtually always refered to by three names. Many of the suggestions are people who we know the middle name of and they are only sometimes referred to with it. Mary Shelley and William Taft, for examples. There’s probably a bunch of others. Well, I guess it’s my fault. I should have known this would happen.
Actress Jennifer Jason Leigh. Born Jennifer Leigh Morrow (Vic Morrow’s daughter), she changed her name and is now known exclusingly (sic) as indicated. She chose Jason in reference to actor and family friend Jason Robards. She’s killed in a number of roles (a good thing), but I don’t think she’s killed anyone (which is a good thing, too).
That eliminates Conan Doyle.
I keep a trivia file that I recently reviewed before the Jeopardy online test. I notice a lot of three-named people in there. It seems to me I usually hear all the following referred to by all three names, but I can’t swear they’re “virtually always” referred to that way:
James Whitcomb Riley
John Greenleaf Whittier
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Joel Chandler Harris
Samuel Eliot Morrison
Eva Marie Saint
Zora Neale Hurston
John Peter Zenger
John Stuart Mill
Sasha Baron Cohen
Paul Michael Glaser
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Carly Rae Jepsen
William Jennings Bryan
Mary Ann Mobley
John Nance Garner
Sandra Day O’Connor
Bret Easton Ellis
John Kennedy Toole
Julia Ward Howe
Juliette Gordon Low
David Foster Wallace
Edgar Lee Masters
Katherine Anne Porter
William Randolph Hearst
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Thomas Hart Benton
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Sue Monk Kidd
Rob Roy Macgregor (best known as a character in the historical novel, but he was a real person)
Richard Henry Lee
William Lloyd Garrison
Stephen Jay Gould
Kennesaw Mountain Landis
Junius Brutus Booth
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Neil Clark Warren
Questionable because they’re foreign names with different naming conventions:
Peter Paul Rubens
Le Duc Tho
Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Eun, Kim Il Sung
Kiri Te Kanawa
Erich Maria Remarque
Sun Myung Moon
Other questionable cases:
Babe Didrikson Zaharias (“Babe” was a nickname)
Sugar Ray Robinson (As with Sugar Ray Leonard, “Sugar” was a nickname)
Ford Maddox Ford (not his birth name)
Honorable mention for a four-part name: William Lyon Mackenzie King.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
John Wayne Gacy
John Wayne Glover
John Wayne Bobbit
I think the Korean and Vietnamese should not count. In those countries, 3 names is normal, 2 names is peculiar.
I mostly see his name written with an initial rather than first name, so he’d be eliminated on that basis.
Consider it done.
Catherine Cortez Masto
Shelley Moore Capito
Mary Higgins Clark
William Makepeace Thackeray
Since I discovered that Clinton prefers just being called Hillary Clinton and was on the 2016 ballot as Hillary Clinton, I’ll accept this.
Maybe Hillary went back to a two-name, but I shall forevermore be a three-name!
~VOW
My favorite repeat Colbert Report guest:
Doris Kearns Goodwin
She did go back to two names when she ran for president, but that was probably for political reasons. Either way it doesn’t matter for this thread. I’m asking about what name we collectively call the person, not what they prefer to be called. There were a lot of people who didn’t use all three names even when she wanted them to. And even if she goes back to three names, it’s virtually certain she’s still going down in history as a two name person.
Huh, weird, I actually ran a search on the thread and no Curtis came up.
I had to double check Zeta Jones but you’re right. I remember when she first became famous in the UK in the 90s and I’m fairly sure her name wasn’t always hyphenated then, because it’s her middle name.
Surely that should count because it’s his professional name, the one he’s always known by. It’s not like, say, William Shatner, who seems to be called Bill among his friends, but would always be referred to as William in articles about him.
Very few people here will know him but Mormons will:
Joseph Fielding Smith (Jr.) the president of the church for a couple of years when I was a child, son of Joseph F. Smith (Sr.) and grand nephew of Joseph Smith.
Ok, apologies for Mary Shelly, but I couldn’t resist pairing her with her husband, who I think is rarely referred to as Percy Shelley.
I’ll also retract Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, since Teilhard de Chardin is one of those compound last names. (It’s still a cool name.:))
Let me raise a question related to this thread, that I’ve been wondering about:
In reading the news, I’ve noticed that a great many names in the news are given with three names. I’ve wondered why this has become so common.
And, how do we tell if the name-in-the-middle is actually a middle name, or part of a compound surname? How would we know, for example, that Arthur Conan Doyle is a compound surname?
And for female names in the news: Is that “middle” name a real given middle name or a “maiden” name (or part of a compound surname)? But the question remains: Why is it so common that full names with three-part harmony are used?
I think he’s mostly just referred to as Shelley, but I may have the wrong impression.
But that seems to fit your rule one. I interpreted that to mean that if he’s referred to by more than one name, he’s referred to by three names rather than two.
It seems to me that in your original list Emerson, Alcott, and Maxwell are referred to either by one name or three.