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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To not like non-family middle names

162 replies

Coffeeandajigsaw · 11/10/2013 15:14

I'm of the opinion that middle names should be family names, or possibly something with significance, not names just chosen because you like the sound of it. Yes I know it's a free world and my own middle name is very much a 'vanity' middle name (ta, mum) but I just think it's a bit silly. Pick a dead relative, or even a living one, or if you hate your family, just don't bother with a middle name at all!

Especially hate filler names, too many Isla Graces and Jessica Roses!

Sorry if I'm being offensive, was just interested to know if this is just me?

OP posts:

Thants · 11/10/2013 22:39

I don't like when people have more than 1 middle name. There does seem to be an odd trend atm where people call their girls Lily May for example and you don't know if it's a middle name of a double barrel first name.

NK493efc93X1277dd3d6d4 · 11/10/2013 22:48

Agreed - multiple middle names are weird. I remember an article about a boy having 11 or so names in honour of his father's favourite football team.
YANBU OP - you are entitled to your opinion although there are many "offence takers" on here who will shout you down.

TheDoctrineOfSpike · 11/10/2013 22:59

Huh, I was sure you would have gone for Buffy, MsWilliam.

MsWilliamTheBloody · 11/10/2013 23:03

Huh, I was sure you would have gone for Buffy, MsWilliam.

I had a rabbit called Buffy.

She was black. And awesome.

I have a picture of her tattooed on me.

TheDoctrineOfSpike · 11/10/2013 23:19

Alisvolatpropiis · 11/10/2013 23:23

Why are multiple middle names weird?

Think of all the choice people with multiple middles names have.

Middle names is such a weird thing to get uptight about. No middle name? Fine. Eight middle names? Also fine.

Thants · 11/10/2013 23:27

Yeah it is fine. People can do it of they want I just think it sounds silly. But I wouldn't say that to someone who had done it! It's fussy and child like IMO.

Alisvolatpropiis · 11/10/2013 23:28

thants people on this thread have done that and said so. So you kind of are saying that to them.

Thants · 11/10/2013 23:30

This isn't real life! It's a debate thread on the internet.

Alisvolatpropiis · 11/10/2013 23:34

People will get offended by it though.

Thought I do find the "can't offer advice on names in real life" thing interesting. If I genuinely thought someone I knew well was not choosing well eg names that turn into sexual innuendo when paired with surname etc I definitely would say "love are you sure? Because it sounds like...". In a nice way.

SoupDragon · 12/10/2013 07:39

Did the OP ever come back?
Was this her first and only post?

Clue: one answer is yes, the other is no

ipswichwitch · 12/10/2013 07:51

my middle name is a right PITA.
It is a family name with a foreign spelling, which nobody ever gets right. It is a fairly common name though. I even had to send my passport back once since some genius at the passport office "corrected" the spelling, since obviously I can't spell my own name right
So for that reason I think some family middle names are more of a curse than a blessing and you should be able to call your DC whatever the jeff you like. Unless it's Dweezil Beelzebub the 3rd, in which case you should probably be arrested or something.

MsFanackerPants · 12/10/2013 09:23

The name options for us would be my estranged father, his father or on my mum's side Enoch or Luis. The first would be a bad idea and our dog is called Louis.

On DPs side we would have Moishe and Samuel and you you can't use the name of someone living.

For girls all the nicer names have been used by my cousins on my side and as DPs deceased grandma wss called Fanny I I think we should probably skip that too.

As it is first names are the ones with family relevance for the baby I am having next month. Middle names are just names we like the the sound and meaning of.

Jelly15 · 12/10/2013 09:31

DS1 has my surname before I was married and it is also a biblical name. DS2 has a biblical middle name too.

Jinsei · 12/10/2013 10:07

We chose middle names which reflected my husband's cultural heritage.

Likewise. Not a family name as this would be frowned upon in my DH's culture, but the first letter of dd's middle name has family significance!

JennySense · 12/10/2013 12:26

Love middle names tbh. Mine both have my surname as one - youngest has my MILs first name and eldest has my grandmother's first name [variant is also my middle name].

I'm a family history geek and my middle name/variants have been passed down since the mid 1850s from one female ancestor.

As close as a couple of generations ago, this ancestor's full name was used - I often wonder what she was like to have inspired so many namings :)

0utnumbered · 12/10/2013 12:29

Just don't name your kids that then. Sorted :)

My eldest's first name has significant meaning, his middle name is because we liked it. My youngest's first name is because we liked it but it's hyphenated and he has a middle name too both with family meaning.

It does not affect your life in the slightest. The only time that a name annoys me is when it's embarrassing then I feel sorry for the child.

sarahtigh · 12/10/2013 12:36

we traced family back to 1660 they were farmers/ farm labourers never moved so all in parish records as CofE and diocese records intact, as in that line everything was in either that or neighbouring parish it was not hard took me a couple of weeks

it gets much harder if in london as opposed to a village and not CofE/ catholic as before about 1812 unless landed gentry parish records are really about the only source

PoopMonster · 12/10/2013 12:41

I'd never really thought about it but both DDs have 2 middle names: one family "significant" and one "filler" like the Roses and Graces mentioned. (So does that make us less "wrong"?)

Now OP has pointed out the pattern it will make naming DC3 easier

ipswichwitch · 12/10/2013 12:46

DH has a family middle name. It's awful. There was laughter at our wedding when the registrar said it. She then proceeded to call him by said middle name in the next breath. Family middle names should be very carefully thought out IMO

stupidlybroody · 12/10/2013 12:57

God you'd hate my mum, my middle name is as fillery as it gets: Ann Louise. No significance, she just liked it. And even though it's boring and pretty much every 90s girl has one of those as a middle name, my full name has a nice ring to it.

If I have any children a middle name will likely be a filler. My family has boring names.

DawnOfTheDee · 12/10/2013 13:04

I always thought people gave DC middle names that were family names as a way of keeping themselves (and therefore their DC) in the will. But i'm suspicious like that and like to think the worse of people mwa-ha-ha....

Minty82 · 12/10/2013 13:16

I do, if I'm completely honest, think of the point of middle names as being after a relative or friend, or to maintain a tradition. Purely because that's how they've always been used in my extended family and, thinking about it, all my close friends. I hardly know anyone whose middle name is just because their parents liked it or it went with their first name, and I like the extra resonance of family meanings.

My dad goes one further though - he thinks all first names should be family names too. Much as he likes DD's name 'aesthetically', he ever so slightly disapproves that I didn't dig around in the archives and name her after a great great grandmother.

ouryve · 12/10/2013 13:18

YABU to even care what someone's middle name is and where it comes from.

Jan49 · 12/10/2013 14:35

I used the middle name as a way of including a surname from my family in my ds's name, as he has his father's surname. I hate my surname so ds's middle name is my mother's maiden surname. So his name is Firstname - Grandmother's maiden name - Dad's surname. I love the fact that a surname that crops up quite a lot in our family tree is also part of his name

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