tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post5676368648476477408..comments2024-03-16T00:21:43.240+00:00Comments on Separated by a Common Language: initials and nameslynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-79333099526134348392015-04-01T19:09:00.151+01:002015-04-01T19:09:00.151+01:00Drawn back to this thread I see that I should have...Drawn back to this thread I see that I should have said before that my father and his family exhibit two Scottish trends and their demise.<br /><br />The family had long left Scotland when my grandfather was born, but they retained the practice of using surnames from elsewhere in the family as christian names (still the normal term for what we might now call forenames). He was given a surname — <i>Maxwell</i> — as first name and a more common Victorian forename — <i>Arthur</i> — as middle name.<br /><br />When my father was born, the family used another Scottish convention — the one described at the end of Lynne's OP — giving the first (and, as it happened, only) son his father's first name, which was never used. (He was also given the same initials, but this may have been by chance, not by tradition.) So my father was <i>Maxwell Anthony</i>. <br /><br />But he was never <i>M. Anthony</i>. All his life he was <i>Tony</i> or <i>M.A.</i>.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-18987672938792391272015-04-01T14:12:24.563+01:002015-04-01T14:12:24.563+01:00My wife, who had no middle name, rolled her last n...My wife, who had no middle name, rolled her last name to middle after the wedding. I have a middle name but don't use it. <br /><br />I don't know if this is usual anywhere, but in my family the tradition has been for the father's first name to be the son's middle name:<br />Ralph-->Stanley Ralph-->David Stanley-->Kirk David-->Henry Kirk.<br /><br />Of course, there has only been one son in each generation for quite some time.Kirk Poorenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-72099417989133788822015-03-10T19:43:42.716+00:002015-03-10T19:43:42.716+00:00The only English english name with leading initial...The only English english name with leading initial I can remember is T. Dan Smith.<br /><br />Maybe because it was so unusual. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11215675076577628776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-3899163475635014772014-11-12T13:23:21.622+00:002014-11-12T13:23:21.622+00:00There used to be a Scottish TV presenter called Do...There used to be a Scottish TV presenter called Donnie B MacLeod. When asked what the B stood for, he explained that Donnie MacLeod was such a common name in his area that at school they were called Donnie A, Donnie B, Donnie C etc. to distinguish them!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-56445076256904634922013-09-05T12:09:54.530+01:002013-09-05T12:09:54.530+01:00In (BrE) public schools (i.e. fee-paying boarding ...In (BrE) <i>public schools</i> (i.e. fee-paying boarding schools), and perhaps in some imitators, it was customary to use another pair of Latin adjectives tagged on to the name: <i>Major</i> and <i>Minor</i>. <br /><br />These were for brothers. For father and sons we have odd examples like <i>Pitt the Elder</i> vs <i>Pitt the Younger</i> and <i>Amis Père</i> (Kingsley) vs <i>Amis Fils</i> (Martin).David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-59557557831455624012013-09-05T02:19:34.095+01:002013-09-05T02:19:34.095+01:00In Britain we do use junior and senior — but almos...In Britain we <b>do</b> use <i>junior</i> and <i>senior</i> — but almost always as descriptions (hence my lower case) or when referring to Americans who use <i>Junior</i> and <i>Senior</i> (with upper case) in their names.<br /><br />Last week there were many opportunities to hear the whole <i>I have a Dream</i> speech on its fiftieth anniversary. I was struck to hear the speaker introduced as <i>Martin Luther King <b>Jay Ahr</b></i>.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-8402165849754622132013-08-27T00:21:51.830+01:002013-08-27T00:21:51.830+01:00Americans love the first name - middle initial - s...Americans love the first name - middle initial - surname paradigm so much they use it for Russian names: thus the New York Times refers to "Vladimir V. Putin" and "Dmitry A. Medvedev". I find this quite ridiculous as the initials stand for patronymics which cannot be chosen or altered. Ian Mac Eochagáinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08807587737403861042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-6964700425633540752012-11-11T19:32:16.280+00:002012-11-11T19:32:16.280+00:00It would never occur to me to refer to my middle n...It would never occur to me to refer to my middle names as forenames/ first names. I have one first name and two middle names. But if someone asked for my given names I would respond "X Y Z" not just "X".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-35781025201295773422011-05-31T17:39:43.323+01:002011-05-31T17:39:43.323+01:00The use of initials as name is very much alive in ...The use of initials as name is very much alive in the American South. I have several uncles- J.D., J.W., I.J., etc., (no J.R., though) and have been called J.T. all my adult life. Folks from other places think it's a) quaint, b) too formal and/or c) pretentious, but it's just an old tradition, is all.<br />-J.T. PattonJ.T. Pattonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-87092780258079496412010-03-13T11:50:34.496+00:002010-03-13T11:50:34.496+00:00I've come across several Welsh folk who've...I've come across several Welsh folk who've been known invariably by their middle name. Initials in names can (wrongly) seem pretentious to BrE speakers. I've heard them mocked like they were part of the name of a Groucho Marx character. Also unkindly mocked are AmE post-nominal uses of "Junior" and of Roman numerals when the person plainly isn't a king or queen.Paul Danonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04816761952837296368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-52943506907086904482009-09-09T17:05:25.525+01:002009-09-09T17:05:25.525+01:00A Brit here as well, but I have three given names,...A Brit here as well, but I have three given names, as does my brother and many other relatives. Also my Dad and his father before him, and other relatives of previous generations<br /><br />And not at all from the Jennings & Darbyshire class - riveters and ironworkers and soldiers and so on.Ken Brownhttp://ken.wibsite.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-65223915701387802052009-09-05T22:14:39.594+01:002009-09-05T22:14:39.594+01:00British. I have three forenames and have always be...British. I have three forenames and have always been known by the last. Similarly my father had three forenames and was known by the first at work but the third at home. I'm doing everything I can to lose the surplus names.Martinus Scriblerushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07550595497511087925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-698813527089104592009-09-02T20:33:53.474+01:002009-09-02T20:33:53.474+01:00As a mid-western American, I chose First Middle Ne...As a mid-western American, I chose First Middle NewLast when getting married. My mother-in-law (Northeast American) is First OriginalLast NewLast, and occasionally First Confirmation OriginalLast NewLast. My given Middle name has a family history to it and I was more interested in keeping that than my OriginalLast name. Now, I live in the South and most married women (those who actually change their names, which is becoming less common) become First OriginalLast NewLast.<br /><br />My husband is officially First Middle Confirmation Last, but never uses his Confirmation name. Both of us sign formal documents First MiddleInitial Last, unless required to sign a full (spelled/spelt out middle) name.<br /><br />For President Grant, the version I heard was that he was originally Hiram Ulysses Grant, but when he was packing his trunk to go to West Point he had to label it with his initials and he did not want to be HUG - he would much rather be US Grant, so he added the S and dropped the H. <br /><br />Finally, if I hear someone who goes by multiple last names (Shirley Temple Black), I assume the last Last name is the official last name, unless hyphenated. I never realized that was regional thing.Amanda P.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-20124407040152801592009-09-02T08:49:09.518+01:002009-09-02T08:49:09.518+01:00"Why do all you Americans use your middle nam..."Why do all you Americans use your middle names?"<br />I thought this was an English habit. I am Christopher Thomas, but known throughout my life as Tom, and there are any number of similar examples in my family. At the most extreme end my father, christened William George, was called Tim throughout his lifeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-16944648907223565092009-09-02T06:41:14.577+01:002009-09-02T06:41:14.577+01:00My mother, from upstate NY, was given a double bar...My mother, from upstate NY, was given a double barreled Mary name too though as far as she's concerned her first name is Mary Margaret, not Mary and not Margaret. Believe me she will fight about it. She wasn't given a full middle name at birth, just a middle initial, but as Bill mentioned she incorporated her Confirmation name as a second middle name. So now she's Mary Margaret A Elizabeth Elevenletterfrenchsurname. Unsurprisingly with that mouthful, she often abbreviates her first name to MM on documents that just can't accommodate it. <br /><br /><i>Is that same-middle-name Junior thing really established in America? So William Gates III has the same middle name as his father and grandfather? How unimaginative.</i><br /><br />Could be worse. He could be the now teenaged scion of the famous Illinois political dynasty, Adlai Ewing Stevenson V.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14708599658301706496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-62856748907319826852009-08-31T22:45:04.476+01:002009-08-31T22:45:04.476+01:00@Solo: "N.B. Why is there no 'u' in &...@Solo: "N.B. Why is there no 'u' in 'forty'? That's always bugged me."<br /><br />(1) I think you mean PS, not NB<br /><br />(2) The answer is that the vowels in "four" and "forty" are different, except in accents with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_r#Horse-hoarse_merger" rel="nofollow">horse-hoarse merger</a>. Which is to say, most British and American accents, but not Irish accents.mollymoolynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-2893101248264655822009-08-31T20:33:20.392+01:002009-08-31T20:33:20.392+01:00I wonder if the Brits are more likely to use just ...I wonder if the Brits are more likely to use just initials because of the obsession with titles? "Doctor" is spelled out on my cash card, followed by my initials and surname (and it drives me CRAZY!)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-84910488481409065252009-08-31T16:18:34.238+01:002009-08-31T16:18:34.238+01:00Oh, and as an Atheist I always score out "Chr...Oh, and as an Atheist I always score out "Christian" and substitute "first" where that form appears on... um, forms; although my impression is that it has become pretty uncommon in Britain.Cameronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-86784147155497066732009-08-31T16:15:00.242+01:002009-08-31T16:15:00.242+01:00I am Scottish and my signature has my first name, ...I am Scottish and my signature has my first name, middle initial and surname. I have recently relaxed my previous insistence on including my middle inital at all times, but will continue to do so anywhere I have writing published.<br /><br />I am pretty sure the most famous British middle name user must be James Paul McCartney, although he has never, as far as I know, used the given first initial. John Winston Lennon, on the other hand, substituted Ono for Winston as his middle name when he married the great Love of his life; at least I hve never seen or heard any reference to John Winston Ono Lennon. Yoko became Yoko Lennon Ono, which seems to me a neat solution.<br /><br />Quiz question "give an Irish girls' name", obvious answer "Mary". I sometimes think ALL Irish girls are called Mary, and am pretty damn certain it's a constitutional requirement for the president to be called Mary!Cameronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-73484672949715333362009-08-31T15:04:22.105+01:002009-08-31T15:04:22.105+01:00On a point that both related to the Irish Catholic...On a point that both related to the Irish Catholic Naming convention, as well as number of names:<br />I was always under the impression that previous generations would include their Confirmation names as part of their "real" names.<br /><br />So if you were Michael Sean O'Connor before your confirmation, you would be Michael Sean Patrick O'Connor afterwards.Billnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-32096264420223303732009-08-30T19:49:18.220+01:002009-08-30T19:49:18.220+01:00I'm a four-named American. I assume from the c...I'm a four-named American. I assume from the context of this post that this means that I have three forenames. (Which should not be confused with having three four* names - what, you can't count?)<br /><br />When younger, I briefly considered using one of my middle names as an ekename, but the one I might have used was the second name. This would have required** me to write "D. Michael Q. Sundseth", which would have been too absurd even for a pedant like me.<br /><br />When younger, I hated the awkwardness of computer forms and two middle initials (maybe I should have used "T" for "Two Middle Initials"?), so, of course, my son has two as well. But we did consider the effect when choosing the order of the names. One of his many choices is now "AJ", which is common enough to be unremarkable.<br /><br />BTW, I now have some credit cards that only allow one middle initial, some that allow both, and at least one that has both full middle names. At least a few companies are starting to solve the problem for those of us who don't fit quite so conveniently in the usual bins. (You can choose either the BrE or AmE sense of "bins" for that last bit.)<br /><br />* My idiolect allows "three four" (or possible "three, four"; I'm not sure how to transcribe that) to indicate something like "3.5 with a standard deviation of .5". That is, quite probably either three or four, but two or five wouldn't be completely impossible. I don't know whether this is a regionalism or common to most English dialects.<br /><br />** At least I thought at the time that it would have been, in some sense, required. (BTW, my middle initials are not MQ.)Doug Sundsethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01848091504066560951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-13815500646017146822009-08-30T03:05:00.957+01:002009-08-30T03:05:00.957+01:00Well I'm a Brit and it's a family traditio...Well I'm a Brit and it's a family tradition to have two middle names and wherever possible I sign myself as Solo. X.Y. Surname. I always write that on forms etc where they only want initials and it annoys the dewberry out of me when they only use the 'X' beacuse if I'm only allowed one, I'd much rather have the 'Y'.<br /><br />I have plenty of friends who have two middle names and just as many who have none, so I'm not sure the same connotations are still attached [as mentioned in previous comments]. Generally though, boys have their father or granadad's name and girls have Jane or Anne.<br /><br />I've heard of plenty of men off the island being known by their middle name, especially by their family, but in my experience the practice is restricted to Northerners and those over forty. [N.B. Why is there no 'u' in 'forty'? That's always bugged me.]<br /><br />As an anecdotal aside, I had a friend at college who had three brothers and all four boys had no middle name, but a <i>different</i> double barrelled surname. So he was Ian (actually Iain, but he thought that was stupid and didn't bother with the second 'i')Courtney-Gilbert and his brothers were called things like Fergus Stanley-Gilbert and Clarence Bottomley-Gilbert and Norman Astley-Gilbert.<br /><br />I think they were a special case though. We just called him Gilb.<br /><br />Incidentally Lynneguist- I'd always secretly hoped the M stood for Mildred.Solonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-80314934715100975932009-08-29T17:37:15.576+01:002009-08-29T17:37:15.576+01:00It's my impression that women are much less li...It's my impression that women are much less likely than men to use initials.<br /><br />George Bernard Shaw went by his middle name. One may speak of "G.B. Shaw" or "Bernard Shaw", but never of "G. Bernard Shaw". My father generally goes by Joe, but formally he is "Andrew J." not "A. Joseph".<br /><br />Middle initials are more commonly used in Ireland than England, perhaps to disambiguate people with the same common Catholic names. I guess even in England a lot of John Smiths will cite their middle initial. Leading 20th century Irish politicians include W.T. Cosgrave, John A. Costelloe, Sean T. O'Kelly, Charles J. Haughey.<br /><br />Mary's non-answer worked fine for this Irish person. <br /><br />I dispute Emmet's parents' claim that three names is normal in Ireland. It's unusual, though it doesn't have the middle-class connotations that it does in England, where too using players' initials is common in lineups in match programs for the gentlemanly sports of cricket and rugby union.<br /><br />It seems to me that Scotland is the place where having no middle name is most common. <br /><br />"John NMI Doe" is used in US police procedurals where NMI is "no middle initial"; though I don't know how Mr Doe can fit NMI into the single-character "middle initial" field on application forms.<br /><br />I remember reading a list of famous US ambassadors on which I was surprised not to see "Shirley Temple Black". She was there: I was looking under T instead of B.<br /><br />Is that same-middle-name Junior thing really established in America? So William Gates III has the same middle name as his father and grandfather? How unimaginative.mollymoolynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-86960705815494856252009-08-29T05:34:19.348+01:002009-08-29T05:34:19.348+01:00@Emmet: Junior and Senior aren't used much at ...@Emmet: Junior and Senior aren't used much at all in the UK, so I think that any British mis-use of 'Jr' is done in attempting to use it in the American way.lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-60115336722744999052009-08-29T05:20:31.460+01:002009-08-29T05:20:31.460+01:00Ooh! Very interesting post. Three hopefully not-to...Ooh! Very interesting post. Three hopefully not-too-lengthy thoughts:<br /><br />-My (Irish immigrants to the US) parents gave my brother and I two middle names, one after a family member and another after a saint; my American friends tease that having three first names is pretentious, but my parents insist that this is normal in IRL.<br /><br /> Personal experience sorta confirms this; my US passport and driver's license confine me to one initial, but the Irish passport and driving licence have two. But is the "Firstname A.B. Lastname" pattern used in Britain at all?<br /><br />-The president was actually born Hiram Ulysses Grant; at some point (he himself didn't know when/why) it became Ulysses "S" Grant. My favo(u)rite alleged explanation is that people teased him about the initials "HUG".<br /><br />-Regarding Junior/Senior--are these used less restrictively in the UK than elsewhere? I was always told that one can only be a "Junior" if one has the same middle names--thus, Joe A. Schmoe's kid Joe B. Schmoe can't use the postnominal. But British publications often refer to George Herbert Walker Bush's son George Walker Bush as "Jnr"...Emmethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15529277959703532939noreply@blogger.com