Known by middle name, not by first name.

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Hi all, family history is an interest of mine but in a newbie to it.

does anyone know why a lot of people are known by their middle name all their lives rather than their first given name? I know sometimes it’s because they take their father’s name and known as their middle name but that is not always the case.

my own grandfather was given his fathers name as a first name and known as his middle name. My uncle was given my grandads middle name he went by but my uncle has always been known as his middle name 😂 I honestly forget that his name isn’t actually his first given name.

my grandmother doesn’t even have a middle name 😂

but I’ve realised sometimes it’s nothing to do with family names and traditions like that.

also a group of siblings where some are always known as their first given name, but some known by their middle names.

hops this makes sense and I’m not sounding like an idiot.

it had made it slightly harder looking up people on ancestry.

I was known by my middle name but now my first - think parents wanted family names first but had us all as biblical names

DHs mum, aunts and maternal grandmother (mary ann to annie) were all known by their middle names. The eldest aunt was born on her DFs birthday, they apparently wanted her to have the same initials as her dad because she was a girl so gave her a first name neither of them really liked and then used her middle name all her life. When their DD2 and DD 3 & 4 came along they continued with the habit of using middle names over first names. DH knew the history, but I only found out when locating their birth certs in their house in order to register their deaths.

With my paternal DGM she and all her 7 siblings were known by nicknames and so it took a while to work out a family tree for them. Thank goodness they had an uncommon surname where they lived Otherwise Cissie, Nancy, Jack, Polly, Tilly and Tiny would never have surfaced!

DBro started using his middle name when he went university. Hrs a bit younger than Prince Andrew, and there were loads of Andrews in his year.

MiL uses her middle name because she dislikes her first name. She has done since she was really quite small.

BiL has always been known by his middle name and no one knows why, not even my PiL. His first name (the one he doesn't use) has no particular family significance.

My cousin uses his middle name as he had the same name as his dad.

I have a colleague, whose family call all the boys in the family the same name, then there is a long and complicated system of who uses, for eg: Robert, Rob, Bob, Big Rob, Bobby, Middle Name, Surname based nickname etc, it doesn't help that they all live in the same small town and use the same dentist!

My dad was always known by his middle name. Apparently his grandma insisted it couldn’t be his first name as it wasn’t biblical! They weren’t even religious. I think it was just the done thing in 1951! So they put it as his middle name and just called by that anyway

my husband is known by his middle name... apparently this is because at the time of his birth, when they chose his first name, another family member also had a baby which shared the same first name, but the baby passed away and his family thought it would upset the parents too much hearing my husbands name being called.. so they reverted to calling him by his second name.

Very common in my family. Even worse my Uncle was known by his father's name not his own.
It used to be common at some public schools that Masters might call you by your first name but family and friends would use your middle name.

My dad was one of five boys. Two known by their first name, two by their second name and one by a name totally unrelated to any of his three names!

Years ago through work I knew one entire family, grandparent, parents and adult children and all living in the same town. They all had the same surname which would have been fine, but all five of them also had the same initials as well.