Being known by your middle name- just a male thing?

[peak2021]

In researching ancestry over the last few years and reading the information found out by other family members, I've noticed several male ancestors or those known in my childhood (great uncles for example) who used their middle name as their first name. There are three recent male Prime Ministers similarly (James Callaghan, Gordon Brown and Boris Johnson).

Yet I have not come across any women in my family/ancestry, nor indeed any women in public life apart from actresses. So is the use of middle names just a family quirk, or is this more widespread that only some men use middle names?

MIL changed her name to her middle name when she went to university - she was called Jane and hated it. She’s been using it ever since.

It's an interesting one. My maternal grandfather used his middle name, as did all his family on both his dad and his mum's side. I've always wondered about that- whether it was coincidence, or some kind of local practice (they came from the same small rural town). It wasn't the case that they were all called 'John' after one another and then used their middle names either- there's a whole variety of first and middle names, but the middle names were always for everyday use.

Not just a male thing. I have two friends who both go by their middle name. One has changed her name by deed pole to remove her first name legally. Second one, I never knew she went by her middle name until I went to her wedding and the vicar used her full name. Even the wedding invitations had her middle name, not first name. Wasn’t even a weird first name.

I know a few women who do this. Normally because they hate their first name!

Megan Markle (Megan is her middle name) her first name is Rebecca, I think.

Oh, this is interesting because I've been researching family trees and found it the opposite. More women going by their middle names. Or taking on a very unrelated name entirely as a first name. Dh was surprised to find that several of his aunts weren't actually named what he thought they were named.

The men never seem to mind being one of 1200 John Smiths

The baby names board would implode here if someone ever gave their child a name a cousin has....let alone all their cousins have!

@AlbusSeverusMalfoy

Megan Markle (Megan is her middle name) her first name is Rebecca, I think.

It might be different for an actor though as they have rules to what names they can use.

I think a lot of families go for safe with the first name and get a bit wacky or unusual with the second one. It might be a lure for someone wanting to go a bit unusal.

I am known by my middle name, although in my family/origins it's thought of as a second name rather than middle name. I always think "middle name" makes it sound a bit hidden
So my first name is the one I'm named after (the saints name of the day I was born) and the second name is "my" name. This is how most people in my family are named too.

I work in a care home and lots (honestly, lots) of our residents go by their middle name. Most of them catholic. I wondered if it was because they were given a name from the bible as a first name but their actual name was their middle name.

Both of my sisters use their middle names. They always have done.

MIL is known by her first name and so is my dad. So it’s equal in my family! MIL doesn’t like her first name and my dad’s name was meant to be his first name but then they decided to christen him the other way around and call him it anyway.

I work in elderly care. I would say it is reasonably common among both sexes to go by a name that is not their first name according to their medical records.

Possibly slightly more common amongst men, maybe, hard to say.

I'm known in my family ( mum dad, siblings etc) by the second part of my name (like Anne Marie )
everyone calls me Marie.

I left home, moved away and started using my first name eg Anne. Years later all my friends, colleagues immediate family ( husband, son's and Husband's huge family know me as Anne.
It got confusing for people at family gathering using Facebook etc for people on both sides of knowing me by different names.
My nan said to my friend once 'oh I do like Marie's dress' and my friend was looking around for someone called Marie in a nice dress looking like this 🤔

*known by her middle name, not first name!

It depends on culture as well.

Where I’m from a significant proportion of boys are called Mohammed, in many families all boys have Mohammed as a first name, so most are known as their second name to avoid confusion.

My friend is eg Mary Catherine Rose Surname and has always, since birth, been called Rose.

I knew two sisters who had the same names as each other, the other way round, e.g. Lisa Karen and Karen Lisa. They were both known by their middle names, having decided to 'swap' in childhood.

My dad and his brother both have first names which have been used in the family for generations. My gran always called my uncle by his middle name - she was the only person that did. I think she just preferred it and would have chosen it if she'd been able to. (My dad was the one with the same name as his dad, so it wasn't that.)

In Wales females are referred to by their middle name, I can think of four that I know straight away - one is my mother!

MIL is known by her first name and so is my dad.

So they're both called Gladys?!

I once briefly met a woman who told me that her name was 'Twinnie'. I forget what her actual name was. She said that she'd always been called that, because she was a twin. Apart from it being breathtakingly unoriginal (the equivalent of calling a Dalmatian 'Spot'), it did rather beg the question as to what the other twin was known as?!

One thing I've noticed is that it's far from uncommon for men to be called a diminutive of their surname as if it were a first name - such as Black Sabbath singer John Osbourne, known to the world as Ozzy; but lots of ordinary non-famous men do the same. I assumed the same was true for Ozzy's one-time bandmate Bev Bevan, but it turns out his real first name actually is Beverley!! I've never known of a woman (whether called Beverley or something else) being known in this way.

I was about to come on and say it's a Welsh thing too! A lot of my grandparents generation had a 'proper' English name and a 'common' Welsh name. Eg Edward Wynn. Known as Wynn. Seems to be dying out a bit, but there were a few in my class in school who still did it.

My dad and his brother both have first names which have been used in the family for generations.

This always puzzles me: isn't that effectively what surnames are intended for, to link the same family? I can understand for monarchs, as they don't have/use surnames - and are generally very well-known!, but it just seems a bit confusing to me to have a surname, another de facto 'surname' as everybody's first name and then needing a middle name to actually distinguish the individual from the rest of their family??

My mil uses her middle name as her first name is the same as her mum's. She's from NI.

One thing I've noticed is that it's far from uncommon for men to be called a diminutive of their surname as if it were a first name - such as Black Sabbath singer John Osbourne, known to the world as Ozzy; but lots of ordinary non-famous men do the same.

My dad was in the military and it's really common there. The only people to call him by his actual first name were his mum and sister. I think I must have been 5 or 6 before I realised that the name my mum/all his friends and colleagues used was just a shortened version of our surname.

Both my mum, my mother in law and my grandma all use their middle name exclusively as their given name, and have done since birth or toddlerhood.

The people I know did it because they don’t like their first names.

My step-dad was Welsh and was known as Huw rather than Arwel.