Why do people bother giving middle names to children?

[Nevada]

I just can't see the point. When would you use them?

Lockets, Middle names rhyming or not are brilliant. IF YOU AS THE PARENT DECIDES. I am grateful to have the names i do as i carry on the family names. I wouldn't change it for the world. if anyone gets narky at ya just tell them to bog off

Lockets'd ds have beautiful names - especially the one that rhymes ....which I hadn't actually realised till Lockets told me it did. Just thought it was a beautiful, unusual and special name (suits its owner too!)

At the end of the day all parents (well most of them I'm sure, and everyone here) give their children names that they like, think will suit their child, and think their child will like.

Some of us unfortunately get it wrong, whether it's because a name suddenly gets trendy and every other child has it, or because of an association (like the mass murderer or more prosaic things - like the next door neighbour's dog has the same name).

The only person who can make that judgement is the child themselves as they grow up. There are names out there where I think what on earth were those parents on, but hey, those kids might be perfectly happy. When it comes to middle names I think we all have that much more leeway, as there is always the option to drop them - my sister for example has never used her second middle name - it's very catholic, and even our catholic primary school head teacher (a nun) said that she wasn't going to put it on the class register! However I don't think it's every caused her any pain (although maybe this is because of that decision!). The initial thing is another matter, and we should indeed all be very careful there.

Is your real name Nevada then?
Why do we choose names, be it middle or nicknames
Because we FEEL like it
I use mine when the kids are REALLY bad like when I yell

Chardonnay Fontaine Malibu Britney - GET here now or I'll kill you...
You know the sort of thing

Both our girls were given middle names that are names which belong to family.

Don't know if this has been said already and I apologise if it has......middle names were originally given to children by their parents as a form of protection against evil... only the parents and the child knew of these names and if the child was taken by evil then the parents could call them back using their 'secret' name, my whole family have middle names and I like the idea of protection.