If you gave or plan to give your child(ren) two middle names, especially if it’s not a tradition in your family or culture, what led you (and your partner) to give two middle names?
If you thought about giving two middles and decided AGAINST it, why?
I like the idea of using two middles. The middles we’ve chosen for future use aren’t necessarily names we love or even like, but they’re honor names we want to use. I feel like using two middles would give us more options to use names we love and also use honor names, plus potentially improve flow of some combos. My spouse isn’t convinced to use two. It’s not a tradition in our families. For reference we’re in the U.S.
ETA: my wife is primarily worried about practicality. Like what if both middles are too long to put on scantron forms at school or legal documents and such.
I gave my son two middles because I was excited to give him more names (than one middle). I’m in the UK and multiple middles is common and generally not an admin problem. [name_f][/name_f]I was giving my child an unusual name, and I liked the idea that he would have two middles that he could choose from to go by instead if he disliked it.
I have 6 children, and baby #7[name_f][/name_f] on the way. [name_f]My[/name_f] oldest 4 have one middle name, my youngest 2 have two middles and we plan to give this baby two middle names as well.
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I can’t really say why we suddenly switched from one to two middles. I had my oldest son with my now ex-husband, and he only wanted to use one middle name. Everyone in my family only had one middle as well, and I don’t think I ever even seriously considered using two because… it felt kind of too much or obsolete. [name_f][/name_f]But when I was pregnant with my daughter, who’s my fifth child, her name just didn’t feel quite finished with one middle. [name_f]My[/name_f] husband suggested adding an extra name, and it felt right. I kind of switched from “why would I” to “why not”. It’s a chance to use an extra honour name, to add extra meaning to a name.
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So far we haven’t any practical or administrative problems yet.
I think when it comes giving multiple middle names I think you can feel overwhelmed with the decision. You do not want to feel like you are burdening your child with this very long complex name which can feel that when giving two middle names. However I would go for it! Honestly I gave my daughter two middle names and I’m so happy I did her name is so perfect honours her and who she is along with having the opportunity to bestow her own individualistic name onto the child. I haven’t encountered any practical issues
I have two middles so I have/will give any of my children two. As a namenerd it’s a decision I likely would choose anyway as I just think two middles generally make rhythmically better combos, and I get a chance to use more names. It has also become quite popular in my community to use two middles, so at this point it wouldn’t cause too much more of a fuss like it did at times when I was a kid.
None of my siblings that my parents named have two middles besides myself, and I ended up with two because my mom had a name picked out and last minute decided to name me after my dad’s mom so they just added her name in front of the original combo.
I also never had any issues with documents of any kind (I grew up on an extremely small US town, the likliest place for issues), and I was one of a small handful I knew growing up who had two middle names. I did have to leave the second middle off occasionally because of length issues, but that never bothered me or caused any problems. I now have my full name with my last name hyphenated with my spouses, so it’s even longer and I still don’t have any real issues with it.
I wanted to use two middles: [name_f]Caitlin[/name_f] [name_f]Emily[/name_f] [name_f]Louisa[/name_f] and [name_m]Thomas[/name_m] [name_m]Caleb[/name_m] [name_m]Alexander[/name_m], but we decided that we were going with a hyphenated last name, so we dropped the second middle.
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On the other hand, my godson and goddaughter have double middles, both honor names:
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[name_m]Philip[/name_m] [name_m]Francis[/name_m] [name_m]James[/name_m] and [name_f]Elizabeth[/name_f] [name_f]Doris[/name_f] [name_f]Marie[/name_f].
I don’t personally see myself using more than one middle, unless my future spouse feels strongly on the matter. I have nothing against them, I just don’t think they’re for me. my reasons:
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I think it’s likely that my children will have a hyphenated surname, and although my surname is short, it still feels like a lot to give five names
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I don’t use direct honor/family names so it’s not important to me to use more names to honor more people. on the contrary, I think it would stress me out having to consider who and how to honor, to make sure I’m honoring the most important people in my life
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most of my favorite names are around the same length so they don’t flow well as combos
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my style has veered more towards short, punchy combos, and I feel like this suits me. names which are cool on their own and don’t require explanations, as much as I personally enjoy unique or unexpected honor names
[name_f]My[/name_f] wife and I [name_f][/name_f]- originally [name_f][/name_f]- both wanted our future first son to have two middle names to honor both of our fathers, we’ve settled on the first name [name_m]Ellis[/name_m]. [name_f]My[/name_f] dad is named [name_m]James[/name_m] and hers is named [name_m]Kenneth[/name_m]. Since being married, I’ve taken her[name_f][/name_f] last name, which technically means all of our children will have it too and that her father will be honored with all of their names. I like the sound of both middles together, but I only want to use both if the rest of our future children can have two middle names also, but she doesn’t want that. I think [name_m]Ellis[/name_m] [name_m]James[/name_m] /last name/ is fine and she only wants to use [name_m]James[/name_m] as a first middle because [name_m]Ellis[/name_m] [name_m]Kenneth[/name_m] /last name/ sounds strange.
I don’t have kiddos, but if I did, I almost definitely would use two middles. [name_f][/name_f] When I first joined a name forum in 2008 I thought 2 middles was so pointless and excessive, but my mind changed pretty quickly and I love having two middles on my list! [name_f][/name_f] One middle combos feel so empty to me lol. [name_f][/name_f] I can’t even remember why I changed my mind, it was probably about 15 years ago lol. [name_f][/name_f] It feels rather regal to me, which I admittedly love.
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I don’t have any experience whether it’s annoying or not but I did grow up with a guy who has THREE middles (and they’re not short, either, his first and middles are over 10 syllables ), and I don’t believe he ever had issues, so if he’s fine… I think 2 middles is haha. [name_f][/name_f] I guess it could be problematic, guess I’ll find out if I am blessed to have kiddos of my own.
We gave our son just one middle name and probably would for any future babies too!
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[name_f]My[/name_f] husband and I both have one middle name as does everyone else in our family. So I think we didn’t really put much thought into more than one middle name because it just felt like that’s what we were supposed to do. We also have a really short last name so I feel like if we had two shorter middle names it would flow weird?
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I love names though and the idea of being able to use two names for the middle spot would be exciting! So who knows if we’ll change our mind in the future!
So I only have one middle name, but I gave my daughter two.
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In my family, the first two kids (me and my brother) have only one middle name, but they are both very long names (10 & 9 letters respectively) particularly compared to our first names (both 4 letters). We have a double barreled surname too. Number 3 and 4 got two middle names but the overall number of letters isn’t hugely disimilar (number 3 has 4 & 6 letter names, number 4 has 3 & 9). All names are honour names. [name_f]My[/name_f] daughter is donor conceived so she inherited my double barreled surname, and it did make me question the two middle names, but in the end my rationale was that I wanted her to have one middle name that was an honour (in her case [name_f]Sylvia[/name_f], my nanna) and one that was uniquely her own (Odette), so if she ever didn’t want to go by her first name (Marigold) she had an option that was uniquely her’s to choose from, not someone else in the family’s name. I came to this decision because as someone who has a long honour name middle, a long last name and then a short first name, I’ve often felt the only part of my name that is MINE is those four letters at the beginning. Everything else ‘belongs’ to someone else. I could never go by my middle cause its my mum’s name. So I felt by giving my daughter two middles we both got to honour someone (and my mum would have been horrified if I’d not honoured someone in the middle) but also give her something that was her’s. I love her overall name, and I definitely plan to do it again with future kids.
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Her full name is [name_f]Marigold[/name_f] [name_f]Sylvia[/name_f] [name_f]Odette[/name_f]. I also think it just flows better as a name and with my surname.
personally i think i’ll give my kids two middles, as i have two and it’ll be a nice connection. my full name is [name_f]Danica[/name_f] [name_f]Marion[/name_f] [name_m]August[/name_m] (last) and most of the time they only put [name_f]Danica[/name_f] [name_f]Marion[/name_f] A. (last). but overall i really love having two middles!
It’s not a tradition in our families. For reference we’re in the U.S.
[name_f][/name_f] It’s a total surprise but I feel so blessed