Middle Name Confusion

[easysurfer]

I've grown to think that middle names are nothing but vanity trouble.

I don't have an official middle name. Just first and last name. But over the years have used a middle name (I blame my parents and older siblings). In younger days, when asked for a middle name, they said something like 'use your confirmation name as middle name"), so I did.

Fast forward to today. I got my driver's liscense renewed with a Real ID. Yeah, having to bring about 5 different documents to prove I am who I am. At the counter, the person said I need a DL number change as my passport has only first and last name. The soc security card has middle name spelled out. My old DL has my middle initial. So now after getting my DL renewed, now my DL matches my passport with no middle name.

That isn't the end of the story as I've included my middle initial for tax forms and credit cards and checking accounts. So, looks like still, in a mixed bag with sometimes middle initial and sometimes not .

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Reminds me of some of the programs we had in the Air Force. You had to use your MI for some stuff and if you didn't have one, then it was three letters..."NMI"

Leave it to the government, eh?

 

[easysurfer]

Reminds me of some of the programs we had in the Air Force. You had to use your MI for some stuff and if you didn't have one, then it was three letters..."NMI"

Leave it to the government, eh?

I never heard of "NMI" until today doing some internet searching .

 

[Nemo2]

I never heard of "NMI" until today doing some internet searching .

Jack NMI Reacher.

 

[timbervest]

LOL I remember the first time I saw NMI -- it was for a friend of mine from Israel. I thought it was a Hebrew name

 

[Gumby]

My mother never gave me a middle name*, so I went through the military with the NMN designator. When I graduated from law school, to honor my mother, I told the school to put her maiden name as my middle name on my sheepskin. I have used that middle name ever since.


* She almost never called me by my given name either, but that's another story.

 

[candrew]

I recall a former w*rk colleague telling me that while he was going through a divorce, his soon-to-be ex would call him by several *new* middle names.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

For those of you that don't have middle names, how did you know as a child that you were REALLY in trouble?!?

 

[Cobra9777]

We have a friend from the UK who visits us often. He has two middle names, both listed on his passport. We travel with him domestically and I always book the flights using his full legal name. I don't recall the details, but this always seems to cause problems with names not matching. I think it's related to the way his name prints on the boarding pass. We always work through it, and then I harass him about having so many names.

 

[easysurfer]

We have a friend from the UK who visits us often. He has two middle names, both listed on his passport. We travel with him domestically and I always book the flights using his full legal name. I don't recall the details, but this always seems to cause problems with names not matching. I think it's related to the way his name prints on the boarding pass. We always work through it, and then I harass him about having so many names.

Is the full legal name the one on the passport?

I'm been signing stuff less and less with my middle initial since I really don't real middle name to begin with.

I used to always sign important stuff with my middle initial. I almost made a big faux pas at the DMV as the person had just told me about dropping the middle initial as I don't have a middle name on the password. So, out of habit, I almost signed with the middle initial in my signature .

 

[Cobra9777]

Is the full legal name the one on the passport?...

Yes.

 

[RetireBy90]

I've grown to think that middle names are nothing but vanity trouble.

I don't have an official middle name. Just first and last name. But over the years have used a middle name (I blame my parents and older siblings). In younger days, when asked for a middle name, they said something like 'use your confirmation name as middle name"), so I did.

Fast forward to today. I got my driver's liscense renewed with a Real ID. Yeah, having to bring about 5 different documents to prove I am who I am. At the counter, the person said I need a DL number change as my passport has only first and last name. The soc security card has middle name spelled out. My old DL has my middle initial. So now after getting my DL renewed, now my DL matches my passport with no middle name.

Same here but because of the Jr designation. Military ID has it, DL has it but passport doesn't. So had to return (after a wait of about 2 hours) with Birth Cert which has the Jr. Never thought about it before that happened. We travel couple times a year and wanted the Real ID so no issues boarding planes, and also VA has an indicator to show your a vet if you bring in your DD214 to show honorable discharge. Figured get all that I could for the one renewal price

 

[RunningBum]

I don't get this thread either. I must be having an off day. You've gotten yourself into a mess because you don't have a middle name, but have used one on legal documents. Wouldn't life be simpler if you just had a middle name? How is a middle name "vanity trouble"? I don't get the vanity part, and I don't get the trouble part of having one either.

 

[RetireBy90]

I don't get this thread either. I must be having an off day. You've gotten yourself into a mess because you don't have a middle name, but have used on one legal documents. Wouldn't life be simpler if you just had a middle name? How is a middle name "vanity trouble"? I don't get the vanity part, and I don't get the trouble part of having one either.

I know my mom didn't have one but adopted one along the way due to problems when she left the middle name blank. Guess it isn't that uncommon.

 

[braumeister]

Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War General and President, made the best of an awkward situation and just went with what he was called.

Grant, son of a leather tanner, was born April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio. His parents, Jesse Root Grant and Hannah Simpson Grant, took six weeks to name their infant, eventually settling on Hiram Ulysses Grant.

Grant’s mother called him Lyss (short for Ulysses). Local wags called him Useless. As Grant himself admitted in later years, he was not an industrious boy. Grant detested the stench of bloody hides and dreaded the prospect of spending the rest of his life in his father’s tannery.
...
Ulysses must have a middle name, Hamer thought, and he wondered what it was. He had always heard him called Ulysses or “Useless.” But this Congressman knew his constituency, and he remembered that Jesse Grant had married Hannah Simpson. The boy’s middle name must be Simpson, so the hovering pen descended and wrote Ulysses Simpson Grant.

 

[rodi]

My parents were sexist in their giving of middle names. My sister and I weren't given one. My brother was. The argument was that when we daughters got married, our maiden name would become our middle name and we'd take our husband's last name.

Both my sister and I did that.... but now my sister is divorced... and back to just first and last. I almost kept my maiden name (vs adopting my husbands last name) as I was in my late 30's... already had a career under that name... But he had a cool last name... so I decided to change it.

NMN and NMI are common substitutes... but not universally recognized as indicating there is NO middle name. I ran into that a few places in the 38 years I didn't have a middle name.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Back when I was working in nuclear power, there was an engineer with the initials "N.A." with no middle name. Drove the Quality Assurance department nuts when reviewing drawing signature blocks.

 

[MichaelB]

My parents were sexist in their giving of middle names. My sister and I weren't given one. My brother was. The argument was that when we daughters got married, our maiden name would become our middle name and we'd take our husband's last name.

I'd never heard that. In Latin America women keep their maiden name and use both (maiden and new last), but they also have middle names, so after mariage they have 4 names. It's also very common in some countries to address girls by both first and middle name.

 

[rodi]

I'd never heard that. In Latin America women keep their maiden name and use both (maiden and new last), but they also have middle names, so after mariage they have 4 names. It's also very common in some countries to address girls by both first and middle name.

In Italy married women keep the last name they were given at birth. This was made law when divorce was legalized. It makes it much easier for genealogy.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

You lot are worried, the handles my parents gave me are confusing to all. I have 3 given first names (I guess that means 2 middle names, but I have been referred as all of them individually at one time or another) and a double barrel last name (English). You do not even want to know about the junk mail I get. It has been a pain during all my tenure in North America. Folks think my last name is a vanity name (When a woman in North America tacks on their married name to their maiden name to produce a double last name).

Some of the issues:

1) Folks think I am female because of my last name. (I am definitely male)
2) My first, first name can easily be transposed to a female name as can the other 2
3) Credit bureaus simply do not get it.
4) Banks and financial institutions get confused

The best part is depending on my perceived mental capacity of the person(s) I am communicating with, I may not give them both last names. Also on all on line stuff that needs a last name, I only give them half of it and usually not my first, first name.

I am sure other folks with long and convoluted names have these kinds of problems. One does get used to it, but it used to be very tedious when I first emigrated to the US from the UK.

 

[Bestwifeever]

I also was not given a middle name (not sure why not as my sisters and brother have them). Sometimes I tell people I go by my middle name and don’t have a first name. I use my maiden name as a middle name now if situations demand one.

Two of my granddaughters do not have middle names either. And I know some children who have two middle names. It’s really not much of an identifier any more.

Related: I didn’t get a drivers license til I was 25 for various reasons. I guess I used my social security card as an id til then, but I don’t remember ever needing to prove who I was til I got a passport in 1977. Times have certainly changed.

 

[KenZ71]

I work with a lot of people from India with only an initial for first or last name. No middle initial either.

Then their are the hyphenated names...

 

[easysurfer]

I don't get this thread either. I must be having an off day. You've gotten yourself into a mess because you don't have a middle name, but have used one on legal documents. Wouldn't life be simpler if you just had a middle name? How is a middle name "vanity trouble"? I don't get the vanity part, and I don't get the trouble part of having one either.

I think life would be simpler if middle names didn't exist.

 

[MuirWannabe]

I'd never heard that. In Latin America women keep their maiden name and use both (maiden and new last), but they also have middle names, so after mariage they have 4 names. It's also very common in some countries to address girls by both first and middle name.

Exactly. Forget middle names in the US. They’re nothing compared with names in Russia, Latin America, and I’m sure plenty of other countries.

Creating applications for global use, we quickly learned size requirements for name fields were much greater internationally than we ever dreamed, having grown up in our provincial caves. Patronymic names and the like. Who knew? [emoji4]

US names are positively short by comparison.

 

[tinlizzy]

My ex husband and 3 of his siblings don't have middle names. His youngest brother was born after his parents divorce and he was given his mother's boyfriend's last name as a middle name. His oldest brother gave himself a middle name. His only other brother was given the name RC - which doesn't stand for anything (must be a southern thing?) and no middle name. I think he suffers the most as you can imagine.

When we bought our first house the mortgage company inserted a letter as a middle name on the paperwork and to this day he still gets mail with that fake middle initial.