Middle name

First/given, middle, and last/family/surname diagram with John Fitzgerald Kennedy as example. This shows a structure typical for English-speaking cultures (and some others). Other cultures use other structures for full names.

In several cultures, people's names usually include one or more names. These names can be in addition to the number that are usually considered adequate to identify someone. In a number of cultures where a given name is expected to precede the surname, additional names are likely to be placed after the given name and before the surname,[1][2] and thus called middle names. In English-speaking American culture, that term is often applied (arguably mistakenly) to names occupying that position even if the bearer would insist that that name is being mistakenly called a "middle name", and is actually (to mention several types of common cases):

In the United States, such names are specifically referred to as middle names; in most other countries, as far as they are given names and not, for example, patronymics, they would simply be regarded as second, third etc. given names. In the U.S., the "middle name" is often abbreviated to the middle initial (e.g. Mary Lee Bianchi becomes Mary L. Bianchi, which is usually standard for signatures) or omitted entirely in everyday use (e.g. just Mary Bianchi). An individual may have more than one middle name, or none. In the United Kingdom, for comparison, she would usually be referred to as either Mary Bianchi, M. L. Bianchi or Mary Lee Bianchi, or she may choose Lee Bianchi, and informally there may be familiar shortenings.

It is debatable how long multiple given names have existed in English-speaking countries, but it is certain that among royalty and aristocracy the practice existed by the late 17th century (and possibly earlier), as exemplified in the name of the Stuart pretender James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766).

Despite their relatively long existence in North America, the phrase "middle name" was not recorded until 1835, in the periodical Harvardiana.

The use of multiple middle names has been somewhat impeded recently by the increased use of computer databases that occasionally allow for only a single middle name or more commonly a middle initial in storing personal records, effectively preventing people with multiple middle names from being listed in such databases under their full name. This is worsened by longer compound names, like María del Pilar Pereyra or María de las Nieves García.

The abbreviation "N.M.N." (no middle name) or "N.M.I." (no middle initial), with or without periods, is sometimes used in formal documents in the United States, where a middle initial or name is expected but the person does not have one. The middle name can also be a maiden name.

Since 1905, "middle name" has also developed a figurative usage meaning a notable or outstanding attribute of a person, as in the phrase "discretion is my middle name."

English

In countries that primarily speak English—such as Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom—the forename of a relative is sometimes used as one's middle name to honor familial heritage.[3] In many cases in the United States, however, a person's middle name has little or no lineage-related context, and is used instead to honor close family friends or notable public figures.[3]

In the United States, those who choose to be known primarily by their middle name may abbreviate their first name as an initial, e.g. J. Edgar Hoover (John Edgar Hoover). Others simply omit the first name, like Woodrow Wilson (Thomas Woodrow Wilson). A rare case of an individual being given only an initial as a middle name, with the initial not explicitly standing for anything, was Harry S. Truman. (He once told reporters—apparently at odds with his own practice—that the S should thus not be followed by period.)[4]

More than two given names are fairly common. In England they are traditionally more common among the "upper classes" and "middle classes".[5] Examples are J. R. R. Tolkien, W.E.B. Du Bois, George H. W. Bush.

Middle names can be also used as first names. Major examples are Paul McCartney, Mitt Romney, Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning, Sylvester Stallone, Jonathan Demme, Riley Keough, Reese Witherspoon, Hayley Orrantia, Brad Pitt, Ashton Kutcher, Scott Chandler, Nomar Garciaparra, Bill Mumy, Roger Waters and Jim Acosta.

East Asia

Chinese

Traditionally, Chinese names consisted of three characters—the surname, followed by a two-character given name (ming), which is not separated into a first and middle name in usage. Two-character given names follow a naming tradition in which the first character of the given name (and thus the second character in the three-character full name) indicates the person's generation in his/her family. For example, the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing dynasty has the given name Yinzhen (胤禛) while his brothers' names all begin with the character "Yin" (胤). His sons' and nephews' given names all begin with the character Hong (弘). Traditionally, the list of generational names may be decided many generations in advance by the ancestors. In such naming systems, the de facto given name is the last character of a person's full name. Even if that was the case most of the time, sometimes the person's given name is the middle character and not the last. A three-letter name is both patriarchal and hierarchical, as it would inform of a person's belonging and rank within a family. During the One-child Policy, there was no need for a generation name as there was only one child in each generation. Many names in Mainland China were shortened to two-characters during this time, and there are many adults with shorter names remnant from this era. This would not be found in Taiwan or Hong Kong.

A fading Chinese tradition is to use a courtesy name, called zì (字) in place of a male's given name in adulthood. Traditionally zì is given by one's father upon reaching the age of maturity at 20 years old. This name is intended for use in formal situations and formal writing and confers a status of adulthood and respect. Like the ming, the zì is composed of two characters which usually reflect the meaning of the ming. Prior to the 20th century, sinicized Koreans, Vietnamese, and Japanese were also referred to by their zì. An alternative courtesy name is the hào (号; 號; hào; Japanese gō; Korean: ho; Vietnamese: hiệu), which usually referred to as the pseudonym. A hào was usually self-chosen and it was possible to have more than one. It had no connection with the bearer's míng or zì; rather it was often a personal choice and may have reflected a personal belief or philosophy. Chinese adults may more frequently use the hào to refer to themselves. The zì or hào can be used independently of the given name and of each other, but the given name is almost always used with the family name in official situations.

Some Chinese Americans move their Chinese given name (transliterated into the Latin alphabet) to the middle name position and use an English first name, e.g. James Chu-yu Soong, Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang, and Michelle Wingshan Kwan. The Chinese given name usually has two characters which are usually combined into a single middle name for better organizational purposes, especially with Cantonese names, such as Bruce Lee's middle name, Junfan. There are also some new immigrants whose Chinese given names are their first names followed by English middle names.

The practice of taking English and Chinese given names is also common in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. However, rather than placing the Chinese given name between the English given name and the family name, it is commonly placed after the family name in these places. Under such a system, Bruce Junfan Lee would have been Bruce Lee Junfan. This practice is consistent with both the Western convention of putting the given name before the family name and the Chinese convention of putting the given name after the family name.

Scandinavia

In Denmark and Norway, the term middle name refers to names that are originally surnames, but not part of the last name of the name bearer. The term middle name does not refer to additional given names, which are instead referred to as given names. A middle name could be e.g. one's mother's maiden name or the last name of another recent ancestor (for instance a grandparent). One can have several middle names, but it is unusual to have more than one or two. In law, middle names have a separate status. In practice, their status is similar to that of additional given names, and middle names are often omitted in everyday use, just like a person with 3 or 4 given names would only use one of them in most situations. The historical purpose of middle names is to honour some related family or person, a godparent, or even a completely unrelated person, such as a locally or nationally prominent figure. Until the 19th century, it was not unusual to have the last name of a godparent as one's middle name, even when the godparent was not a blood relative. This practice, and the use of middle names in general, however, was mostly limited to the bourgeois class and the nobility, and was seldom seen among common people. In the 20th century, the use of middle names, especially one's mother's maiden name, was more widely adopted, although it is by no means mandatory. There are few set rules for how names are constructed today; people are required to have one given name and one family name, but can have as many additional given names and middle names as they like.

In the example Carl Viggo Manthey Lange, the names Carl and Viggo are given names, while Manthey is a middle name and Lange is the family name. Manthey is his mother's maiden name. Unless his full name is used, he is correctly referred to as Mr. Lange, not as Mr. Manthey Lange. Carl Viggo Manthey Lange has a name typical of the Norwegian bourgeois class, with both his family name and his middle name being of foreign origin and being recognised surnames. Most Norwegians and Danes of the working class and peasant class used patronymics until the 19th century, when permanent family names became mandatory, first in Denmark in the early 19th century and then in Norway around 1900. A middle name is usually a recognised surname and not a patronymic. One reason middle names have become popular in the 20th century, particularly in Denmark, is that most Danish surnames originated as patronymics and are shared by a large number of people. The use of middle names in modern times serves to differentiate them from other people. For example, Danish politician Lars Løkke Rasmussen has some of the most common given and last names in Denmark (Lars and Rasmussen); his mother's maiden name is the slightly more unusual name Løkke, derived from a small agricultural property, so he uses it as a middle name, which differentiates him from other people named Lars Rasmussen.

In Sweden, the position is much the same as in Denmark. Middle names were inaugurated in the previous Name Act of 1963, then called "tilläggsnamn" (additional name), and are called "mellannamn" (middle name) as of the present Name Act of 1983. However, it had previously been more common to join e.g. the last names of both of a child's parents, or for a married woman to join her maiden name and the husband's last name, as a double name with a hyphen; and large portions of the Swedish population have not adapted to the official system to this day, i.e. for almost 50 years. People often use a hyphen between their middle name and last name themselves, and/or are spelled that way by other people and by mass media.

Furthermore, when the term middle name was introduced in Swedish ("mellannamn") the word was assumed by many to mean the additional given names (apart from the "name of address" (tilltalsnamn)), so since 1983 the word is being used more and more in this, officially, erratic meaning.

Occasionally, Scandinavians choose to use their middle name as their surname in everyday life. So Per Gottfrid Svartholm Warg has Per and Gottfrid as his given names, where Gottfrid, not Per, is his name of address, Svartholm as his middle name and Warg as his last name, but in practice he uses Svartholm as a surname. This usage, however, is unofficial. Historically, a middle name could become part of a double-barreled surname (family name) and hence cease to be a middle name, especially if used for several generations. There are many family names of this kind, which contributes to the confusion about middle names that shall not be hyphenated. Some of these double-barreled surnames are combined with a hyphen, while others are not, so a double surname without a hyphen can sometimes be indistinguishable from a middle name followed by a family name.

In Scandinavia, there is no limit on how many given names one can have. Given names have never been referred to as middle names, apart from many in Sweden believing so, as mentioned above. The use of more than two or three given names is generally associated with the upper class. The first given name is not necessarily the name of address. For the sake of completeness, Swedish forms often ask people to fill in all their given names and to indicate which one is their "name of address" (tilltalsnamn).

Southeast Asia

Vietnam

Traditional middle names in Vietnamese are "Văn" for male names and "Thị" for female names. However, modern Vietnamese do not consider these to be attractive names, especially "Thị". Therefore, nowadays popular middle names also are popular first names. Middle names play an important role in Vietnamese full names; they could help creating beautiful names when combine with first names, distinguishing people who have the same first name (there are many common last names in Vietnam), and also distinguishing the gender of the names (unisex names are used widely in Vietnam). Hence, Vietnamese rarely abbreviate their middle names.

Philippines

For Filipinos, the middle name is usually the maternal surname, which is the maiden surname of a person's mother. The use of the maternal surname as middle name is from American influence, where Filipinos adopted English naming customs, when they once used Spanish naming customs, that used two surnames (paternal and maternal) joined with the particle y (or e, before "i"), which remains in use but became restricted to very formal purposes, police records and legal proceedings. In the Spanish naming system, the middle name corresponds to the maternal surname. The middle name (or the maternal surname) is usually being abbreviated to a middle initial. Thus, a person with the full name Juan Santos Macaraig, with Santos the middle name in the present order, may become Juan S. Macaraig with the middle name abbreviated, and Juan Macaraig y Santos in the Spanish system, such as those used in names on police records, especially those seen on name placards held by a convicted person on official mug shots. The Philippine system, using "given name-middle name-surname" order (or "Christian name-mother's surname-father's surname") coincidentally follows the Portuguese naming system that uses two surnames, the first being maternal and the second being paternal.

But, the maternal surname may not be the middle name at some cases. It may be a second given name, like what the term really means, as in Jose P. Laurel, where "P." (a middle initial) corresponds to Paciano.

In illegitimate children, the middle name is the maiden surname of the mother, and the middle name (maternal surname) of the mother as surname, but the surname become of the father's upon legal and administrative acknowledgement by his/her father. Children of a single father takes no middle name, even when the mother's identity is known.

To illustrate that, the daughter of an unmarried couple named Ana Cristina dela Cruz Manansala and Jose Maria Panganiban Lozada, named '"Maria Cristina'", will be named Maria Cristina Manansala dela Cruz (or Ma. Cristina M. dela Cruz), with Ana Cristina's middle name, dela Cruz, as surname. But once Jose Maria wants to acknowledge her as his child legally and administratively, Maria Cristina will take the surname Lozada, but keep the maternal surmame Manansala as middle name, thus, Maria Cristina Manansala Lozada (or Ma. Cristina M. Lozada). As the daughter of only Jose Maria, Maria Cristina will be rather called Maria Cristina Lozada or Ma. Cristina Lozada, even when the mother is known.

In married women, the middle name usually corresponds to the maiden surname, but on professional society, women usually add the husband's surname after their maiden name, keeping the maternal surname. A married woman may decline taking the husband's surname and keep her maiden name as no Philippine law compels women to take her husband's surname. Thus, a woman named Maria Concepcion Perez Limchauco (or Ma. Concepcion P. Limchauco), once marrying Juan Pablo Sanchez Marasigan (or Juan Pablo S. Marasigan) may take the name Maria Concepcion Perez Limchauco-Marasigan (or Ma. Concepcion P. Limchauco-Marasigan), maintaining the maternal surname Perez, Maria Concepcion Limchauco Marasigan (or Ma. Concepcion L. Marasigan), taking the maiden surname Limchauco as middle name and Marasigan as married surname, or keep her maiden names, remaining Maria Concepcion Perez Limchauco upon marriage.

Latin America

In Argentina, most people have a middle name. According to a study, approximately 9 out of 10 Argentines born in 2010 had a middle name given to them. It used to be even more common in the past, as it is an old tradition. It's very common to use the name of a grandparent as middle name. It is termed "segundo nombre" (lit. second name). However, its widespread use is slowly shrinking due to the influence of neighboring countries.[6].

Actually, most of south-american, especially Hispanic citizens are acquainted with the use of compound given names, such as Maria + (second given name) or Juan + (given name), among others. This is often considered a useful way of distinguishing from similar or identical names considering that Spanish-derived surnames are strikingly common in some cultural regions (e.g. Luis Fernandez can be better distinguished if arranged as Luis Antonio Fernandez, José Luis Fernandez, Luis Eduardo Fernandez, etc.).

See also

References

  1. ↑ "middle name (language) - Britannica Online Encyclopedia". Britannica.com.
  2. ↑ "Middle name - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary". Merriam-webster.com.
  3. 1 2 "The Use of Middle Names". 2013-11-13.
  4. ↑ "Truman: The "S" Period".
  5. ↑ "British Baby Names: Two middle names". 2013-01-21.
  6. ↑ "El segundo nombre pasa de moda: Se usa poner sólo uno".
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