Middle names?!

[QuirkyKoala]

Hi I'm curious how people have decided on middle names? Have you gone for names of family members? If so do you alternate each time you have a child so one Dad's side and one Mum's side? Or two middles names so one from each side? Or are they just random names you both liked?

we couldn't agree so both children have two middle names, one chosen by each of us.

Middle names for DS1 - a first name common on DH's side plus the first name that was my first choice for him (but was vetoed by DH as it's also his best friend's name)
Middle names for DS2 - DH's grandfather's name plus my maiden name.

The only thing we did agree on was the order because in both cases the flow was better with DH's choice first.

I honestly don't think it really matters though. My DCs barely know what theirs are. It's nice to honour a grandparent or other relative though.

We’ve got a long list of family names from both our sides combined, and we usually just pick a first name we agree on and then see whatever family name works best as a middle. We don’t alternate Mum’s side/Dad’s side because truthfully that just complicates things too much for us. We also typically only do one middle name, but that’s more so up to preference. We have a double barreled last name so I try not to complicate things too much haha 😆

With my daughter though, I really wanted to use my Mum’s name as her middle, so we found a first name that we liked with it instead of the other way around.

We’re currently expecting our third son, and his middle name has proved to be quite a challenge (mostly just because I’m being picky) so while we’re most likely going to end up with a family name, we’re throwing in a few wildcards as well just to see!

We thought and pondered over middle names for an age when I was pregnant until we realised that neither of us have one and we couldn't see the point in them! So, he doesn't have one either!

First child was a random pick as I just really liked the name.

Second one was suggested by DH as he liked how the initial sounded with the first name. And it happened to be the long form of my dad's name so I was happy to go with it. His own dad had already been honoured ten years previously when SIL chose nephew's name.

We never use their middle name - it's a bit pointless really!

None of us have middle names.

DS has my dad's name as his middle name. If he'd been a girl, he would have had my mum's. My dad was elderly when I was pregnant, and the thought of being a grandfather was what kept him going after the loss of my mum the year before, which devastated him (and me), so this was a no-brainer for me and luckily DH was 100% behind me in the decision. Finding out that we'd used his name meant the absolute world to my dad, and DS loves having a permanent link to him, as he passed away when DS was 11.

Random classic names we both liked.
Certainly not family names.

DD1 was ExH grandmother's name. She died shortly before DD was born, so I thought it would be nice for her name to be DD's middle name.

DD2 was my grandmother's name. Not only was it fair to take her name from my side of the family, but it also happened to be ExH's favourite name. I can't stand the name, so it made sense to knock it out of contention as a first name for any future DC. It was win-win at the time, but we divorced, so we never had the third 😂

Our first son has my husbands middle name as his first middle name then my dad's name as his second middle name.

We have just had a second son and he again has my husbands middle name and then his dad's name as his second one.

Everyone in my family has 2 middle names so we went with that for our DC and gave them family names, both one from
each side.

Random names we both liked.
Each of our dc have one middle name.

All 3 have Welsh middle names to reflect their heritage. First one is Welsh version of a grandparents name, second is a Welsh name with a meaning I love and third is a Welsh name that just sounded great with the first name. I didn’t stress over equally honouring people in both sides of the family and it didn’t cause drama

We named dd1 after dh's mum. For dd2 we dont like my mum's name (she doesn't either so thankfully no worries about causing offence) so we said she could choose dd2's middle name to make it fair. She picked another name from my side of the family. Each DD has one middle name. First names are a bit more quirky and middle names more classic so they can choose to use them in the future if they want to.

Thanks everyone, a lot to consider. I guess my main worry is, I kept my surname when we got married, due to work reasons. So our DD has my name as her middle name and my surname. We are expecting a second now and I would like to give them a family member I am close to on my side as their middle name but unsure if we should as then the children will not have any names connecting to my husband's family. We've not long found out the gender so still time to think about it as baby not due for a while but not sure what to do for the best.

DS has a family name as his middle name. DD has a very distinctive middle name, the place where DH proposed.

DS1 paternal family name. DS2 maternal family name. If we have a third (unlikely) and it’s a boy we would probably go for DH name or middle name.