Not baby names exactly, but advice please...

[Neenook]

DS1 and 2 (8 and 5) have no middle names, something I regret now and would like to give them. How can I do this - can I get their birth certificates altered to show an additional name?

You cannot get their birth certificates altered as far as I know. You have to get it done by deed pole.

Btw, my DC's only have one name too. Can I ask why you are regretting it? How do they feel about it?

Add them in yourself - you don't have to get deed poll (though you can)

Mum has only her first name on her birth cert - priest demanded a saint's name before baptising her so they added in one afterward which she has always used to this day and which her dad ended up using as her name (although everyone else calls her the non-Rome approved original!)

"Add them in yourself"

?

You can add them in yourself.

It's like Confirmation names - they don't get added to your birth cert, but some people still use them as part of their full name.

Surely you cannot just add a name on an 8 year old's BC???

Not on birth cert but on other forms / at school / general usage. You could probably add on passport as well. My mum's middle name is on her passport though it's not on her BC.

At 8 and 5, is it not a bit too late? I know if I was 8 and my parents suddenly foisted a new name upon me, it would feel a bit strange...

I think it's too late - sorry. Neither my sister or I have middle names, I tried to adopt one when I got admitted to holy communion at 7, but it never stuck and I just felt fake using it. Changing their names by deed pole to incorporate a mn would just be a PITA for them later (as I think they'd often be asked to declare their previous names).

We added a second middle name to my DS1's birth certificate - though it was only a few weeks later, I think, so I don't know if there's a time limit. DH went to the registry office and filled in a form - the birth certificate still shows the original name at the top, but in another box further down it shows the full name with extra middle name - and everything official is taken from that box, so his passport etc. shows the right name. I would ring your local registry office and ask them.