Can people with older kids help me with this middle name q?

[purplejungle]

Our first son has two middle names, both family names to honour people who died whilst I was pregnant. I'm pregnant again with another boy and not fussed necessarily about this one also having two middle names. But is this the sort of things kids care about when they get older?! Should they both have two middle names to be fair?! Thanks!

My aunt has 1 middle name, her brothers all have 2. She's in her 70s now and still mentions the unfairness from time to time. I went with all having 1 middle name for this reason as I'd grown up with her story. My aunt had 5 children none have a middle name. It may not be a problem for your dc, but why do something that may cause issues later on when it's easy in the interst of fairness to avoid issues?

Why would it cause issues? What a strange thing for someone to get their knickers in a twist about.

Mine both have 2. I don’t think they even noticed until the oldest was 8! It then came up at a family thing as all their cousins have 1, and one of the cousins was getting mardy about it. We did it to honour family on both sides, I didn’t really pay attention to what others in the wider family had done. I would do the same for another sibling as you have done before, just to avoid any potential issues. To be honest mine could pick a fight in an empty room, why give them something that could become a problem?!

Out of the 5 children my parents had only 2 have 2 middle names and the other 3 have 1 middle name. Never been an issue.

Absolutely fine. I would suggest not choosing one of the same names as the first child though.

Frankly if something as dumb as having less names than a sibling is going to cause problems then they will find something else to moan about so I wouldn’t concern yourself

No, they don't care. At least we didn't.

My siblings have two middle names, I have three. It was never an issue and never came up.

Dc1 has one middle name while dc2 and dc3 have two middle names. None of them care and it's never been a source of teasing between them.

My dh is grumpy that he has no middle name when his sister does. With our children dc1 got one middle name to leave another family name for a potential same sex sibling. Dc2 was the opposite sex and got 2 family names hyphenated as it sounded better that way plus she only has one middle name (according to dh!)

I would give the second child the same number of names, it’s only one name more to come up with.

My mum is the only one of 9 children to not have a middle name and occasionally she'll mention it, I think it bothers her a bit.

Ds1 has one and other two dc have two. Nobody gives a monkeys. Not even sure they’ve worked it out tbh.

I have no middle name and my brother does. It does sort of bother me tbh.

My first has 2. My second only has 1!

Off topic a bit, but why do we have middle names ?

My DB and DS both have 2 and I only have 1, it did bother me as a child because it was like my parents couldn’t be bothered to come up with another name for me and I was the odd one out.

Siblings will sulk about anything they perceive as "unfair". All way into their seventies.

Give them both 2 middle names, keep the peace 😄

Yes. It does. My wee sister used to cry all the time coz she didn’t have a middle name and we all did. Tbh we sort of bullied her for it. She’s Jennifer but always been known as Jenni and one of my aunties thought she’s stop it by telling my sister her middle name was fer (fur) but they forgot the space. That didn’t work. We probably picked on her worse after that.

I have 1 middle name as does DC1, both female.
DP & DC have 2 middle names, both male. We were following a family tradition on DPs side with middle names for eldest sons. It was important to both of us that the tradition be honoured. I hope DCs understand our reasoning when they're older.
As mentioned, DP has 2 middle names, his brother has 1 middle name, no idea if it was ever an issue there though 🤷🏼‍♀️

Like @BookHermitBlack 's aunt, DM(80) has one middle name and her brothers have 2. She is still bitter. It's one of many sexist microgressions of her parents. I actually do think number of names makes a difference, and they should be equal.

So when you tell them off they know its serious 😁

I have no middle name. Never really affected my life... but did feel like I missed out a bit!

I have twins. One has two middle names and the other has one. No one cares.

The twins are now 20

I don't think it's a problem. One of my brothers has two middle names (possibly because he was last and they wanted to use all the names up) and nobody has ever thought twice about it.

Haha, I did this. Assumed Id only have one dd and gave her all the names in the world. Had her sister 5 years later and felt I had to give her the same number.