Where Did Middle Names Come From?

Having a first, middle, and last name is common in the West, but this wasn't always the case. Learn the history of middle names in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Brainstuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren vogelbaumb Here few things perplexed expectant parents more than
picking just the right name for their child. And the
middle name is no exception. It must have both gravitas
and joyed to view and set the tone for a
lifetime of repetition on official forms. But what's in a

(00:22):
middle name anyway? In ancient Rome, people often had five names.
The first three were like today's modern surname, middle name,
and last name. The last two names usually revealed the
person's place or clan of origin. The modern tradition of
inserting a middle name or two into a child's moniker
most likely began in the Middle Ages, when parents gave

(00:43):
babies a personalized first name and a saints name for
middle name, followed by a surname. By the mid eighteen hundreds,
this European habit had entered the United States, brought along
by immigrants, and began to take on new significance. Middle
names inspired by saints were sometimes replaced by religious middle names,
such as a maternal maiden name. By the time the

(01:04):
Civil War began in eighteen sixty one, middle names were
given purely at the parents discretion. Any name of their
liking was fair game, and were often aspirational in nature,
with two or three middle names given. After all, a
hypothetical name of Peter Aurelius Oliver Smith carries a little
bit more weight than plain old Pete Smith, doesn't it.
The idea of a middle name took hold in the

(01:26):
United States, and by the start of World War Two
in nineteen fourteen, official enlistment forms became the first government
documents to request applicants middle names. Middle names were so
much the norm that when computers became routinely used for
US citizenship documents, they were programmed to recognize three names,
not two or four, only three. If a middle name

(01:47):
wasn't entered, the program would automatically insert an m I,
which was a military abbreviation for no middle initial. But
for those without a middle name, let alone an initial
outside of official forms, invention can be the key to success.
For Joanne Kathleen Rawling better known as j. K. Rowling,
author of the Harry Potter series, the middle name Kathleen

(02:08):
is a fictional effect, appearing as if by magic. Today's
episode was written by Laurie L. Dove and produced by
Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other
historical topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot
com