How Many Middles?

General Name Discussion
1

How many middle names do you prefer and why?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3+
  • Other (Please Explain)

0 voters

Personally, I like one middle name for simplicity. I only go over if there is combo I really like with two middle names.

2

I voted Other because I think it depends on the names/combos in question.

We gave my son two middles, both being honor names that we really liked. We didn’t go out of our way to find two just for the heck of it. I love his name and it flows very well, which is a bonus :slight_smile: meanwhile, our top girl combo does not sound good with any more than one middle name unless we were to scrap it. I tried to find a second middle that would work but then it became more of a difficult chore than finding a name we truly loved. You know what, it’s perfectly fine :slight_smile: not every name needs to be long.

I will say that two is absolutely the limit, for me. I know some people do more for cultural or personal reasons and that is fine, if it works for them. In our case, we don’t have any of that guiding our choices. We go with what we like. I just feel, going from a relative’s experience, more than 2 can be sooo difficult at times. This relative had a ton of middle names plus two last names. Not even his mom remembered them all… They just recently made a legal name change to one first, two middles and a single last name. They are much happier now and I wish more care had been given to thinking about how they would go through life with so many names.

4 Likes
3

[name_m]Just[/name_m] one middle name for us. [name_f]My[/name_f] husband doesn’t care either way if the kids have middle names. He’d rather just pick one name and get it over with. Of his 6 siblings, he’s one of only 3 that have middle names. [name_f]My[/name_f] brothers and I all have a middle name. It feels normal for me to have a middle name, but where my husband is from most people have one name and two last names.

2 Likes
4

I think for me it would depend on the number of children I’d realistically want to have which is something I have thought about but don’t know the answer to yet.
If I decide to only have one or two children, I would absolutely go with 3+ middle names; not only is it a tradition in my family but I also don’t see why I shouldn’t.
I only have to put my full name on the most official documents (as in my ID and passport), and I wouldn’t have minded writing 10 letters more those few times.

However, those extra names would be meaningful to me rather than just names I like (though there would be those, too)!

2 Likes
5

I’ve always been a one middle person. It’s what the majority of Americans have so a combo that’s 3 names total (first, middle, and last) has always sounded more natural to me. I briefly toyed with double middles for more names✨ but could never come up with any that felt as much like me as one middle did. And now I’ll almost surely use a double-barreled surname when I have kids, and although I can account for my own last name being super short, 5 names just feels like a lot—especially for a society that’s used to 3.

1 Like
6

I think anywhere between 1 and 3 is ideal. People with no middle names kind of scare me - I know a guy who’s whole given name is “Ben”, and it was just such a weird thing to think about. One or two middles is pretty common here. For me, one middle works better for flow but two allows me to honour more people or use more of my loved names. Three middles is a bit much imo but can work under certain circumstances. Any more than that is too complicated for me personally, but I take no issue with anyone else doing whatever they want to.

Although, one of my pet peeves is when one sibling has lots of middles and the other one doesn’t :sweat_smile: I get so irritated on behalf of the “undernamed” sibling (even though they probably don’t care lol!).

3 Likes
7

I prefer one middle name. Where I grew up middle names as such don’t exist, if people have two names they’re more like “two first names”. That’s how I see my children’s middle names as well, even though where we live now they are officially middle names. Two middle names feels a bit much, because in my head it doesn’t line up that all three names are equally important. I’m not saying that people who give their child more than one middle name don’t find the middle names important, it’s just how it would feel for me personally.

I hope this makes sense, it’s early in the morning and I haven’t slept much :sweat_smile:

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8

I voted other because I prefer one, but I do enjoy two with the right names. We won’t have more than two children (assuming we’re lucky enough to have at least one), so we may use two just to be greedy and have the chance to use more names we enjoy.

1 Like
9

I like two, since it gives room to use more names I love, but maintains a good flow. I grew up with two, and it never caused any problems. I have nothing against just one though, and I can definitely see the benefit when it comes to longer surnames and flow.

Yes! I know it’s a very namenerd pov, but I can’t understand giving one child fewer names than another.

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10

this exactly

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11

I like 1 but would definitely take 2 over a hyphenated last name.

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12

[name_f]My[/name_f] sister and I have 1 but our brother has two middle names. [name_f]My[/name_f] parents had decided to give my brother my mum’s maiden name as his middle name. However my brother was given a lot of teddy bears when he was born so they added a second middle name [name_u]Edward[/name_u].

[name_f]My[/name_f] dad also has two middle names as he was given both his dad’s first and middle name as his middle names.

For me it depends on the flow but I’m not adverse to two middle names.

1 Like
13

I prefer just one. I admire longer combos but I struggle to make them and tend to just prefer the flow of single middle combos

1 Like