Middle Christian Names

[Saxon]

Are they really necessary? What practical purpose do they serve?
From a practical point of view, to me they only cause confusion, filling forms and documents, credit card info, full name or initial, getting it right when repeating it, "You missed a capital letter", etc.
I understand it's an honour or tradition, middle name, named after a relative or hero, why not use that as the baby's first name, my 2 boys are, 1 name only, named after people we admire.
I have a middle name, after my Dad, Arthur, I love you dad, but well you know what I am saying.
What's wrong with a straight ' John Brown'? (fictitious)
I won't start to mention people with 2 or more middle names, or a 'junior', or the ' the 3rd', or that idiot who gave his boy the name of the entire Liverpool football team.

[Mr Russell]

I have two middle names although one of them is really my old surname.

[Selby White]

Never really thought of it as an issue more of a benefit for those who use it in preference to their first name.
My Dad was one that was known to all by his 2nd name, not sure when it started but well before me.
Apparently our next door neighbour who we all know as John is really a Malcolm, only found out when a old workmate asked how's Malcolm (had been at school with him).

My mother had only one first name.

[Barlow Boy]

I fall into the same middle traditional family name, my great grandad, my grandad, my uncle (first born of my grandad) and then me. I very rarely use it, in fact, I embarrassingly spelt it incorrectly on a form once.

[Davycc]

Ha! middle names. Don't get me started. My dear old mother had a thing for history so we all had middle names that meant something to her historically so yours truly was christened with the middle name Clive after General Robert Clive, better known as Clive of India and I hated it for a long time.

Now, it's been kind of a family tradition that the family used the middle names so to family I'm Clive, to those that knew me until I left school I'm Clive. On the day I started my first ever job in the post office I and 2 other new starts were paraded in front of the rest of the staff about 200 people to be introduced. This was done by having us up on a gantry and a fella reading our name out over a tannoy. As he read mine he introduced me as David and there was no way at 16 was I going to stop him and correct him that it was actually Clive. So from there on in I've always been known as David/Davy etc.

At my mums funeral the minister kept referring to Clive and all Tracey's side kept asking who this mysterious Clive was that was never talked about.

[Sniffer]

Similar thing with my Dad. He was born in late '39 and was christened Robert John. Not long after a neighbour's son died. He was called John. The neighbour asked my Grandparents if she could call my Dad John. Bizarrely, my Grandparents agreed and ever since they, and that side of the family, have called him John. To everybody else he is Bob. Kind of confusing when you visit your relatives as a kid.

[johnh]

I think I may have posted this before. I was born on St Patrick's day so I was christened John Patrick. When I was about 10 years old I asked my mother why I wasn't called Patrick John. She said that at the time I was born there were a lot of 'Pat and Mick' Irish jokes doing the rounds and as my older brother was christened Michael, they didn't want us to be known as Pat and Mick.

[Another Northern Soul]

Like BB, I have a similar-ish family tradition of having the same first name of a few relatives and forefathers but I have always gone by my middle name. So, in short, my middle name is very important to me. What 'practical' purpose do middle names serve? The same as first names in my and many other cases

[johnh]

When I played for Yorkshire Amateur in the 1950's, the club secretary, who had been there since the club was founded, was Jack Nelmes. I remember a tale which used to do the rounds of when 'ammers' had a friendly match against Northern Nomads, a famous amateur team before WW2. Apparently, when Jack got details of Northern Nomads team for the program, he saw that every player in their team had three initials. He grabbed the list of 'ammers' players and added one (or two) random initials so that everyone had three initials when the program was printed!

[ChilwellWhite]

I never use my middle name I occasionally have to remind myself what it is