Middle names: Rose, Grace and May

[BimbleWimble]

Are there any stats on middle names? These three (lovely) names seem to be default middle name choices for girls at the moment. They do go with everything but they are everywhere!

They are like Louise, Jane/Jayne, Elizabeth and Anne when I was born (mid 70s).

Louise and Leigh seem to be very popular around here (yorkshire) , grace and mae were popular when i lived in the south (still are)

Also Marie!

Grace

I’d love to know how popular they actually are. I think at least half the little girls I know have one of these as their middle name.

I actually know 3 girls called Emily Rose!!

It was Marie and Louise when I was in school, myself having one of them

Rose is the worst, I mean it's pretty and goes with everything but I feel like every little girl these days has it as her middle. I can't help rolling my eyes a little when I hear another Rose middle name be announced!

It's even worse when it's hyphenated in the first name

This site has the top middle names in the Telegraph birth announcements. Rose is indeed top!

www.britishbabynames.com/blog/2020/01/most-popular-names-in-the-telegraph-2019.html

I'm not sure England and Wales releases middle name info, but Northern Ireland does (the top 5 anyway).

www.britishbabynames.com/blog/2019/07/top-100-most-popular-names-in-northern-ireland-2018.html

They are names that tend to go well with other names, and as a result seem like filler middle names.

When I was at school, Ann and Jane were the go to middle names, and quite a few had Margaret as mn. (Sally Anne, Laura Jane, Sarah Jane, Helen Margaret ...)

When DC were at school, it seemed like all their friends had the mn Louise.

Now it's Rose or Grace or May.

One of my dds has Rose as her middle name. We chose it because we liked it, it goes well with her name, and because we planted a rose during the pregnancy and it blooms at exactly the time of her (summer) birthday.

Yes it's extremely common, but the thing is, there could be 10 more X Roses in her class and I wouldn't know, because nobody really only the child themselves and the parents will ever use it or know it. So she's the only *** Rose to us. In fact, I think if I were to ask dh what the kids' middle names are right this minute, he'd probably have to think about it !

Id say the most popular is Rose. I'm forever hearing "Suchabody Rose, Come here etc ect".

My daughter has Rose as a middle name but she’s 32. Her first name wasn’t in the top100 either but I think is now in the top 50. Irritating.

When I was at school in the late 80's we formed a group in the playground where we all went by our middle names. It was all the girls in the class, around 18 I think, and only four middle names between the lot of us - Louise, Jane, Anne and Elizabeth.

All lovely choices. I don't think you can go wrong

DD has May as her middle name (she's 12) which was partly from a family connection. I had no idea it was so popular until I walked into NICU and there she was, in a row of three baby girls called Ellie May, Lily May and Gracie Mae.

As a pp said it is a middle name so we're not aware of loads of them BUT I do have to explain a lot that her name isn't X-May, it's just X, and May is her middle name. People do hyphenate them quite a lot but we haven't.

My DDs middle name is Elizabeth after our mothers as they both have Elizabeth in their name..
If my next one is a girl we wanted to have her middle name after our sisters as we both have one. Their first names dont make good middle names and their middle names... can you guess?? Rose and Louise
They are good filler names but sooooo common. Need some more creative short names in the mix. My middle name is Debra which always gets a shocked response as I agree it's pretty random! Haha

I’m from the United States and Rose and Grace are super popular here too. Elizabeth is the other one that is super popular. Most of my friends growing up had Lynn, Ann or Marie as their middle name.

I have all of those 3 for my girls, plus a 4th who has Beth as her middle name. I’ve always preferred one syllable middle names.

I don’t think popular is bad though. As long as you love it. We named our daughter Julianna Grace knowing that a Grace is a popular middle name. We love it!

The boys equivalent is James. If there's a thread asking for a middle name for a boy it will go 'James springs to mind'. 'Yes, James was my first thought too' etc.

@4kidmom I actually know a Julianna Grace! It's a lovely name.

They are the default middle names (I work with kids) and I inwardly roll my eyes when I hear yet another Ellie-May Eva-Grace or Lily-May or Lexi-Mae or Gracie-May or Lily-Rose. The playground is monopolised with them and it’s so dull!

Our DD’s first name is long and we needed a short middle name. I’m not usually that fussed on popularity - our other DC has a Top 20 name and I don’t regret it - but despite Rose and Grace sounding perfect with her long first name I just couldn’t do it and picked another random name. I am glad she’s not another Rose really.

(Couldn’t use a family name as anyone we would have wanted to name her after either had quite ugly or dated names or very long names, which would have sounded a bit ridiculous together).

I've noticed most people on here who choose one of these names claim that it's essential they choose it as "it's a family name".

Either it's a generational thing where all grandparents at the moment are called these names or people just like them, they flow nicely, and people kind of delude themselves that it's the only family name they could choose.

They're all nice to be fair, they're just so boring now.

sunyla Thank you so much! She is now 15 and has always gotten a lot of compliments including from her friends. Sure some of the other girls also have the middle name Grace, but they think it’s fun to share a middle name.