To not like non-family middle names

[Coffeeandajigsaw]

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?

I may be wrong Jan but is that quite common in the US? I have a colleague from Atlanta who uses her mother's surname sort of as a cross between a middle and surname. So she is Jane Smithson Hunt for example (not her real name) and she will use that in full or Jane Hunt sometimes too.

I quite liked that idea.

Yanbu, you can dislike anything you want to. So long as you don't say anything to others. I find it an odd thing to worry about

Tut. What is a "meaningless" name? Unless the parents picked it out of 50,000 Classy Babies' Names for the 21st Century and Beyond (available for order from all good bookshops) with a pin, it was specifically chosen for a reason.

Also, once it's been given to a child, it is a family name. Or do people have to be departed before they count as part of the family?

Someone should tell my FIL. He started talking about how there were loads of names in his family, as if his family had an unusual lot of traditional ones that needed using (when I was pregnant), and I made the mistake of being interested. He proceeded to list his first name and all his siblings' first names. None deceased. I smiled and nodded, while thinking that if I'd wanted to name my children any name, so long as someone legally related to them had had it, just for the hell of it, I had a hell of a lot more choice on my side of the family.

I named my children after famous physicists. If I have a girl, she's going to be Tesla.

Ner.

A meaningless name is one that the parents picked because they thought "we really like name X, we'll call her/him that. Oh bugger we need a middle name as well - how about Mary/John; that's definitely a name." DH and I both have those, and they're irritatingly blah and meaningless.

Oh, and I have two middle, family names myself.

I love one, and hate the other, as I detested the original bearer. And my children have two memorial names between them. The two that people would be most likely to dismiss as meaningless fluff out of the lot!

Mary is a wonderful middle name. It means that the woman (assuming member of relevant Christian sect) is entitled to get married in blue, instead of white!

Yab a bit u to actually really care about it, however I totally get where you are coming from with filler names (rose, grace, Mae/may/mai - a aargh!)

We are the opposite and don't particularly like using family names as middle names, that is for us personally, it does not bother me in the slightest if someone else does, in fact my nephew is called my dad and my SILs dads names as first and middle.

I have no idea how anyone could know whether it is a family name or not though, a lot of the so called 'chav' names people describe are actually older more traditional names that are poplular again. I have Lily, May, Grace, Rose and so on in my family (great aunts)

We've chosen family-linked middle names, doesn't bother me if anyone else chooses names for any reason or just because they liked it.
Will privately roll my eyes at every -May, -Mai, -Mae but only because it is so unoriginal and I'm bored with it.

Both my DSs have non family non meaningful middle names I like them thats all that matters. What an odd thing to have an opinion on, each to their own and all that.

It can be handy to have a middle name to fall back on if you don't like your first name.
My DCs' first names were both very unpopular at the time, so I gave them each a more conventional, 'safe' middle name, which they could use later on if they really couldn't live with my choice of first name. DS also has a 2nd middle name, which is an old family name given to every male since 1790.
So, to conclude, I do think you are being unreasonable to suggest that middle names should always only be family names.

meh
who cares?