Middle names?

[Sessy19]

Why do we have them? To give our kids options as they grow older? To honour family members? Because we can’t choose just one name?

I do have a middle name, but OH does not, nor does anyone in his family. Just curious as to someone’s reasoning for a middle name....

I was wondering this the other day. I gave my children middle names because my family has always had middle names. We come from a large Irish catholic family so especially for the boys all my uncles and cousins seem to be matthew mark john Paul Andrew. So they have middle names to get the right ones attention.

As for the women we all have saints middle names so it was normal for me to give my kids middle names. Even though I am the most unsaintly person ever it was just expected of me to give them middle names. I never questioned it before I saw posts on MN asking "what should their middle name be?" Then dawned on me noone is required to have a middle name but law. Lol.

I have 3 middle names! My parents really couldn't make their mind up 2-4 middle names is common across all my mother's side of the family.

My DD is getting one but I would like two, DH is putting his foot down though. I'm not sure why I want any at all but I suppose if I'm only going to name a baby once, I want to make the most of it.

I just love names! And I gave my daughter a middle name that I wanted to use as her first name originally. But didn't because it's pronounced two ways and I didn't want her to have the hassle. However her middle name has a very significant meaning and so I wanted it in there.

There are loads of reasons people give middle names

In Eastern Slavic culture, a middle name is usually a version of your father's name. So I guess it is often to pay homage to family.

I have a double barrelled name so no middle name.

Well, for practical purposes it helps distinguish John William Smith from John Alfred Smith, but most people I know (my family included) use them to honour family members, so our names tie us to previous generations.

I just think it adds a bit 'more' to an identity. We've given ours two middle names, mainly because there were so many names we liked and also we wanted to put slightly more 'out there' names in the mix without making their first names totally crazy.

I have an unusual first name so my parents gave me the most popular middle name of my generation in case I didn’t like my name

In my family middle names are almost always after a family member or family friend, I plan on continue the tradition when I have kids too. Feels like a nice gesture I guess, I especially want to include my step mum as she's not able to have her own biological kids so it'd be nice to have her included in a special way like that. But she also has a kinda unusual ethnic name and I don't really want to give my kids annoying names to spell/pronounce to English people on a daily basis soo ... middle name instead is a good compromise imo