Stuck in The Middle

So the other day, I was fussing at my daughter. “Cricket Marie! Get out of the toilet bowl!”

Ahem, yes I’ve managed to give my sweet furry little girl a middle name.

That got me to thinking about middle names. The origins, the stories behind them. Mine is, as you might surmise Marie. This reflects my Catholic heritage when it was common (whispers) back in the 60’s to honor the Blessed Virgin by giving your daughter a variation of her name: Marie, Mary, Marion etc.

It has a good ring to it. “Joan Marie get your chin away from that hot cookie sheet!” Um, despite the exhortation from my mother, I didn’t and have vivid memories of the burn on my 4 yo chin and the great big Band-Aid on it.

Middle names did not begin until the late Middle Ages and not with English speakers until the 1600’s. As you can imagine with most history, the practice started among the aristocracy. In America middle names gained popularity after the American Revolution in, the South. “Fannie Mae, would ya’ll pass those biscuits please.” The enlistment form for World War I was the first form to provide space for a middle name.

The source of middle names began with lineage connections…great grandfathers, favorite aunts, rich relations. Many women took their maiden names as their middle names. This is the case our own Suz who can trace the practice in her family back to the 1800’s

Eventually, bestowing middle names became a way to differentiate people as the population increased where in any given area you may have fifteen “John Smiths”. So now you had “John William, John Davis, and maybe a John Jacob Gingleheimer Schmidt. Soon doing so became a custom and people drifted from familial monikers to names of people they admired.

So here’s a short quiz.

1. This new teenage idol’s middle name is Drew
2. His sister may have been reincarnated but Henry Beatty goes by this middle name.
3. Suave and debonair James Niven is known by this name.
4. She served hot dogs to the Queen of England…that Anna Roosevelt.
5. Christopher…not a very swashbuckling middle name for this popular pirate.
6. You’d expect something a bit more wolfish than Michael for this Aussie hunk.

Even the Banditas have middle names. Susan’s middle name was a tribute to her father, Roberta. JoMama’s middle name is Jo which often happens if you don’t care for your first name, hence my mom was always Thelma instead of Frances. And in the course of composing this, I found out one of our Bandita’s middle name is JOAN! Can you guess who it is?

So. What about you? Do you like your middle name? If you’re comfortable sharing we’d love to hear it. If you’re like Jeanne and Anna S. who have no middle name, or would change yours what would you change it to and why? What do you think the Golden Rooster’s middle name is?