We have a special tradition in our family where the first born daughters Middle name is her mothers first name. It’s very special for us and goes back several generations. So example… Rachael Victoria. My mother is Victoria Jean. Her mother is Jean Emily. And my great grandmother is Emily Rose and so on and so on. If I had a daughter her middle name would be (first name) Rachael. It’s something special that we Made up for ourselves and is merely ornamental But still holds a special place in our hearts.
In Mexico you tend to have four names that usually go: Personal Name + 2nd Personal Name + Father's Surname + Mother's Surname For example my name is Carmen Maria Randolph Fajardo The shortened version for introductions is typically just your personal name and your father's surname. Plus you also have people with compound personal names.
@@linkiebrown8477 Commonly it's from the father's side. In my case, for example, I have my dad's surname (Salim) first, but let's say my husband is a Johnson. If we have a child, the order would be Name Middle-Name Johnson Salim, since the dad's surname goes first. Some exceptions exist, but usually it's like this. Btw I'm not Mexican, but this applies to most Latin American countries
@@linkiebrown8477 it's always the father's surname. I don't have a middle name but have both my parents surname but in the USA they don't understand that so they only go by by you're first name and father's surname. The DMV messed that up when I first went to get an ID the most important documents had my 3 names but my other documents from school would only show 2. It's more of a sentimental thing, it's nice to also have the mother's surname it's like saying the child (your name) of (father's surname & mother's surname).
But sometimes you can have all of your parents last names, for example my name is Ana Luiza de Carvalho Noleto Silva Goldstein, so is, my first name + my second name + my maternal grandmother’s last name + my maternal grandfather’s last name + my paternal grandmother’s last name + my paternal grandfather’s last name, so your lineage isn’t based on your parents but on your grandparents
In Uruguay we have a first and second last name. It used to be [Names] [Father's first last name] [Mother's first last name]. Since same sex marriage was approved, you get to choose the order of last names, as long as all the children from the same couple have the same last names in the same order.
@Asiboe You're an unholy abomination, incapable of human empathy and undeserving of love or the comfort that can only be bestowed upon you by your fellow man. Your soul is impure and sullied, and you must purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. JK :)
I'm Romanian and it's common practice to give children multiple first names (we call them prenames). It's usually done to pay homage to some significant relative or for religious reasons (one name can be a saint's name given to protect the child). Most of the time, people have a name their mother chose and a name their father chose, or a name the couple chose together and a name that relatives chose (grandparents, uncles/aunts, godparents). Also, sometimes there's a hyphen added between the two prenames to signify that they're equally important. However, most people only go by their first prename (first first name) because they rarely like both of them. Even parents only call the child by the first prename, but the other one is also used in every legal document. Unless the full name is written, legal documents aren't valid. In these instances, the hyphen matters A LOT. I've had collegues struggle with their school documents because of a misplaced hyphen. Also, we sign all legal documents with our family name (last name) first, followed by the prenames in the order from the birth certificate. However, in informal settings, we present ourselves starting with our prefered prename. The middle initial is a whole other story. Some legal documents use the father's first name initials between the last and first name of the child for a more detailed identification. Let's take this example: a child named Popescu I. Maria-Ioana, Popescu Ion's child. Popescu is her last name (family name), I. is her father's first name initial and Maria-Ioana are her prenames. She would most likely go by Maria, since it's the first prename. I'm really curious about the origin of these practices in my country, I haven't really thought about this until now. Thank you for the video 🙌🏻
I'm Romanian too and i've always complained to my parents for giving me 3 prenames (2 middle names + the first name). My name is Ioana-Silvia-Mihaela (mereu uit cratima pe acte). Ioana is the name my mother wanted, Silvia is the name my father wanted and Mihaela is the name everyone else thought i should get because i was born around Saint Michael's day. Everyone just calls me Ioana and it's a pain in the ass because it's one of the most common names in Romania...
In Latvia we sometimes get two surnames which can happen by marriage usually. In stead of changing the surname to your spouse's you get to have both. Only one first name though, which is why we just call it "name". There are some instances of middle names but that's extremely rare. Under legal circumstances, it is common to say the surname first then first names. In casual circumstances we sometimes just name the family you belong to and say your name, something like -- if your surname is Ciociou, your family would be known as the Ciocious, and you'd be called as Ciocious' Anda. Btw Anda is a Latvian name too.
@@UndeadCrabstick I didn't know Anda is used in Latvia as well. In Romania is quite rare, it surely came from another country, probably from the north-northeast. I rarely find someone with the same name as me and people often mispronounce it as Ada or Ana (shocking, since it's so short and straightforward already). Thanks for the info 😊
some people (especially girls as far as i know?) here in belgium have a double hyphen name (i.e. marie-louise or anne-sophie) and i've never understood why tbh
Nicknames -- how do they work?! .. you don't need to make it official to call your child by different names for different situations. (I have a single 4-syllable personal name, the "we are currently unhappy with you"-name I was called had 6 syllables, including a different surname 🤣
I have names in 4 different languages, Vietnamese, Chinese, Cantonese, and I made my own English name in court cause I'm tired of people butchering my beautiful name. But guess what, people still don't know how to pronounce my white name, how hard is it to say Hailey?
Seriously, I agree with you. Some people make things more difficult than is necessary. All it is is "hail, as in hail a cab" with ey at the end. Maybe ppl don't get that either
I have a friend called Alyssa and most of her teachers can’t get her name right on the register like is it that hard to see the letters to pronounce. I thought teachers were smart 😂 Most teachers keep pronouncing it like Aleesa or Aliza when it’s literally Al i ssa
I was named by Filipino naming conventions, so my second name is part of my legal first name and my middle name is my mother's maiden name. Because of that, I always write my second name immediately after my first. It caused loads of problems when I was in elementary school. "Stop writing your middle name." "It's not my middle name. It's my second name."
You just forgot to add that, at least in countries like Brazil, middle names are not as common as in America. Instead, Brazilians use NAME + MOM'S SURNAME + DAD'S SURNAME.
Wow 😮 i didn’t know, I thought it was the same everywhere in Latin America in my country we use one or two middle names, there’s people with more than that but that’s unusual. Is interesting to know Brazilians are different
Oddly enough Hungarians put their last name before their first name unlike any other Europeans (and they rarely have second names). The Hungarian language also doesn’t fit in with the rest of Europe, only being very distantly related to Finnish and Estonian.
Romanians do the same. We use last + first name for official, formal and professional settings and first + last name for informal settings. So, for example, we'd never sign a contract with our first name before our last, but we will sign personal emails this way. Also, we usually present ourselves with our first and last name, but when we're being introduced to some authority figure, we'll probably say the family name first. Almost all fill-in forms first ask for our last name (family name) and it's also written in this order on our ID. Weird, right?
@@andaciocoiu In hungary, I think, we never put our first name first, not even in informal situations. (Only on facebook, but some people even put their first name is the surname section, so it appears in the correct order lol)
Hungarian here, we do have second names, more than half of the people I know have them, including me. (But yes, it is less common than in the rest of Europe.)
It’s true that middle names are not used and kind of make no sense in Korea. I’m from America and have two middle names, and when I studied abroad there there was a lot of confusion at first because no administrative database thought I was enrolled/existed, until I realized I needed to use my middle names to search. On all paperwork, there are only boxes for given and family names, but since no part of a name is disregarded in Korea I had to cram my three given names into that box made for two Korean characters, otherwise it would cause administrative confusion. Almost every Korean there is named using exactly three syllables (one for family and two for given,) so when professors came upon my nine syllable name it always broke their stride in role call 😂
Apparently, it was a Mexican trend once to name all girls Maria and all boys Jose in a family. The middle name then served as their identifier and usually was selected from the Catholic calendar. I found this out when my dad, Jose, said his brother, Jose, had just pasted away. I had to ask him which Jose. Afterwards his sister clarified that all her brothers were Jose (even the uncles I didn’t call Jose) and all the girls were Maria, (which none went by). I think this trend was probably specific to a time and region and more than likely it was typical of a specific socioeconomic class. Maria is so common as a first name that it has its own abbreviation and in the case with my maternal aunt, she doesn’t even consider it her first name, more of a prefix to her name. On my mom’s side that aunt is the only one named Maria and the only one with two names.
I think its common in a lot of catholic countries. In Brazil it was common some decades ago. My mother and all of her sisters have a first name plus "Maria". My grandmother and her sisters have the opposite scheme, with "Maria" followed by a second first name.
Here in my country, the Philippines too. Although, from what I've seen, it's probably a Spanish-Portuguese (i.e. Iberian) cultural thing than a Catholic thing @Ivan Martins...
About “middle names” in Chinese languages, we don’t actually have a concept of middle name. People usually have a surname, and their “first name”. Both of them can be consisted of one to two characters. There is no middle name in Chinese naming system. What resembles as a second(-ary) name called ‘字’ was used by ancient figures such as poets, writers, rulers etc. One chooses a secondary name for themselves that represents their character, ambition etc. It went out of use completely after WWII
But we do sometimes use the middle character as a generation marker. It's more of a diaspora thing, though. You can find shining examples of it in the personal names of Ming emperors, and also most Vietnamese names.
Qiyunwu oh yeah that’s true! But the middle character only functions as part of a name instead of by itself, I think its the main difference. Also, it works if the family keeps the tradition or knows the lineage really well. People, family, heirlooms... got displaced because of the wars and regime changes, which IMO is really sad.
My step-mom who is from China says women do not take their husbands last night. Tho she did take “Golden” when she moved to America with my father. My niece has 2 names. She has her English one but also a Chinese one in correlation with the Chinese calendar.
In Africa ( specifically Ghana the ewe tribe) we give 4 name English name+traditional name+spiritual name ( which depends on the day you're born on)+ surname.. So I am Marian Enam Esi Kushigbor.
Here in Brazil is really common to have two first names, and both matricarcal and partriacal surnames. But I got two surnames from my father anyway having a total of 5 names João Victor Araújo e Rocha de Carvalho
People of certain backgrounds here also may have an ethnic name as well, and it usually goes between the first name(s) and surnames. My name, for instance, is [Portuguese name] [ethnic name] [mom's surname] [dad's surname]. Whether I'll use my Portuguese or ethnic name depends on where I am, who I'm talking to, how close I am to them (my ethnic name tends to be restricted to family, the community and very close friends) and so on. It's literally happened that someone didn't know I was myself because they didn't know the other name lol
My mother gave me a masculine first name (followed by a masculine sir name) so when I applied for jobs I wouldn’t be sexualized (when looking at my resume) or looked down upon as a woman. However, she did give me a feminine middle name so I could still appreciate my woman hood and still have a way to identity myself as a woman. I think she did this because she was looked down a lot for being a woman and just wanted the best for me.
middle names were a godsend when I worked in registrations - being able to differentiate all the different John Smith's was extremely useful when dealing with personal records. I'd always breathe a sigh of relief when I saw people's middle names on file.
I had a doctor from Ghana and he told me they have a fotmal name and a name that indicates the day of they week you were born on that you went by in the family. I have no idea what happened if you had 5 boys all born on a Friday.
i found it odd that this was omitted, despite the fact that this was the first continent to even classify names. I added a contribution earlier about Benin because i spent holidays there in a host family ( 3 whole months ) . but I am half black and that part is southern african. as an eSwatini , you usually get only last name and its a clan name which depending on the region there are about 4 or 5, that is if your entire lineage can be trace on that side. and one first name , which is usually created according to the circumstances of your birth . if you are adopted, ( very common over there ), your name is still a botanical name like most swazi but its the month of adoption that becomes your last name. I believe in swaziland its Imphala , my mom was adopted by Swazi couple, so Imphala became her last name and her first name is the same as that the adoptive grand mother.
I'm a Kenyan of the Kikuyu tribe. We have 42 different tribes and cultural practices and naming is huge. Among the Kikuyu everybody is given two names at birth and if one is religious or westernized is given a Bible or western name. The last name is always the family name from the father side. The first names were forced on our fathers to by the colonial masters. There is a whole history behind it because we rotate our names. The first daughter or son is always names in the paternal parents, the second son or daughter is always named after the maternal parents, the third son or daughter is named after the first brother or sister of the father and so on... switching in that order. If they are twins in the family... whichever side of the birth order they are born in they are not separated. So the two names come in handy when one has a sibling with the same name, then the other name is used. And if both names are used then the name is altered to mean the version of Junior of that name. Also if a name is given to a child and the child dies, the name can be repeated to another child. But if that other child dies they discard the name and give a name that family members know what they were supposed to be and the name is lost to this family... so we may never have met but if you have family members with similar names, then most likely were distant relatives.... sorry for being lengthy
This is so interesting! I always heard that we had middle names because names have power, and people who know your full name have power over you, so middle names are like a secret name, so people don't know your full name and have power over you. Silly I know, but I really like it even if it totally isn't true 😂
In the Arabian peninsula, middle names can stretch for as long as you want, because they reflect patrial generations (father's name -> grandfather's name -> great grandfather's name -> ...etc) and then the last name. Usually with a "ben" (son of) or a "bint" (daughter of) in between the names. The last name is actually not considered a "name" but more of an adjective that reflects the tribe your family linage is coming from. In official papers they usually ask for either the tripartite full name with (first name + 2 middle names + last name) or the quaternary full name (first name + 3 middle names + last name).
My grandmother's family had a fairly long running tradition of naming all the girls Margaret and calling them by their middle names. This made it way easier to trace maternal lines in the family. My grandmother's family was mainly English and Irish though. It stopped during my mother's generation though :(.
How fun, my grandmother and mother had Margareta as middle names, but my mom hated it so much she took it off. I believe even my great grandmother had Margareta in her name. It would have been fun to keep it.
When I was at MIT in 1960, there was a sign on the door of the Dean of Students, which said, "Be prepared to spell your name in full. If unsure, check identification." Initially I thought this was a joke, but later considered that it could be due to the multiple saint's names some Catholics had.
As a kid I would forget if my second and third name had a hyphen between them or not (they do). I still double-checked this when filling out important papers in my teens.
I couldn't spell my middle name until I was nine because it's a very Catholic Spanish name (Montserrat). My (white) dad almost misspelled it on my birth certificate. I also knew a Thai kid who couldn't pronounce or spell his 20ish character last name.
@@palomajune1863 I only found out a couple of years ago that I had been misspelling one of my middle names for my entirely life... that also reminds me of one of friends who had been mispronouncing his own first name for his entire life, and his mother just never bothered to correct him.
Thank you for this! I literally have six names! ( Two first, two middle and two last) after learning the origin as to why this may occur I now take pride in all my of my many names!
In Spain we normally have a personal name, our father’s first surname and our mother’s first surname. It’s getting less and less common to have middle names, but if we do, it has something to do with our Christian name or something like that. A friend of mine needed to be called Dakota de las Mercedes, because otherwise she couldn’t have been baptized back in the day, hahaha.
I'm from Sweden and there is a fairly recent trend in my mother's side of the family of giving children 'middle' names in front of their personal names, or sticking the personal name between two 'middle' names. My mom has the initials V.I.B but goes by I, I have the initials A.P.L.K.B but have always gone by Paula and my brother N.A.R.K.B goes by R (we also have both of our parents' last names, to confuse things further). It's convenient when telemarketers want to talk to V, A or N and none of them are in. ;)
My mum wanted my brother and I to take on one of our grandparents names so that they wouldn't be lost. My brother's middle name is therefore rather unusual "Hamilton", which is more often a surname than a first name. The Germans have rules on assigning names and did not allow Hamilton as a first or middle name, so my mum took her birth certificate which showed that it was actually my grandfather's first name so they allowed it. Luckily the clerk didn't realize that all of my grandpa's first and middle names were actually surnames. I guess my great grandparents thought it was funny to do so :D Having your middle name from on of your ancestors is actually a great way to be a part of your family's history. I somehow feel closer connected to my grandma, who I was named after, without ever having met her.
My brother was named after his paternal grandfather--Claude Odom--and my grandmother's family--Anderson. He was named Claude Andrew. I loved my mother's thoughtfulness.
French names are weird. No middle names but multiple first names. And if you're Catholic? Then you've also got Marie or Joseph in there. Plus you get sons named after the father while having their own name. So for example my grandfather was Joseph-Jean-Marc, and went by Jean. His 3 sons were Joseph-Jean-Marc, Joseph-Jean-Luc, and Joseph-Jean-Benoit. All 3 of THEM going by the last name in the 3. So Marc, Luc, and Benoit. Although it kinda got disrupted with my brother bc of the Scottish tradition of naming first sons directly after the father on my mom's side, so he's Joseph-Luc-André, but instead of going by André, he goes by Luc, and Luc-André around my dad's side of the family to avoid confusion. And then my sister and I have Marie hyphenated into our first names but we have middle names 🤷♂️ [Idk how true this is for French people elsewhere, we're French Canadian, and I know a lot of linguistic stuff is different for us]
One thing to note is that in Pablo Picasso's name, everything before Ruiz y Picasso are given names. Ruiz is his paternal family name and Picasso is his maternal family name. So while we usually talk about him with his maternal last name his paternal last name is legally the principal name he would use.
Just found this channel and I'm super stoked that not only do you give fun information, but I'm really glad that it's hosted by a woman of color. Keep up the good work, and I'm definitely subscribing!
Middle names are important in the film industry too. Many unions and guilds such as SAG-AFTRA and the WGA/DGA require all members to have unique names for the purposes of screen credits. This is the reason many actors, writers and directors use their middle name or initial.
In my family, the naming scheme is as follows: First name (chosen by the parents), Middle name (usually the mother's maiden name) Last name (family name)
Arabs don't have middle names like that, it goes like this first name then father's name then surname (which is family/tribe name). because linage is important amongst arabs we have father's name then grandfather's name then great grandfather's name etc can go for a long way back. for example Sarah Mohamed Hussain Saleh Al-Murri
As someone who has no clue of the Arabic language, I've always thought it was very curious to see Arab names, mostly because there isn't a great variation between them... Or maybe I just wasn't exposed to many different names.
@@kauemoura There are definitely more variations than you've been exposed to, but there tend to be a pattern of names within the same region, usually for male names as fathers tend to name their children (first born mostly) as their own fathers. So it's not unfamiliar to see a man who has his grandfather's name while his father could have his great grandfather's name as well 😅. So you might meet a Muhammad Omar Muhammad Omar (insert family name) which IS confusing even for natives. Girl's on the other hand have a better chance at having a new name as the tradition of naming a girls after her own grandmother is less previlant. I'm sure other Arabs might have different experiences other than I mentioned but this is mine as someone living in the peninsula region 🤷🏻♀️
@@wb8695 Oh, I see, what about surnames, are they also of patronymic and work related origin, such as "Johnson, son of John" or "Smith"? Or based off of place names? (I mean, I'm sure wikipedia must have an article on the topic, but since I'm here, haha).
I am Mexican American and don’t have a middle name but when I got married in Lebanon any official document asked for my fathers name. This was used as my “middle” name.
I was waiting for the video to mention Arabic names. I'm an American married to an Arab, and we followed Arabic naming tradition with our children. In the US, people were confused why our children didn't have middle names. I thought that was less confusing than trying to explain why my daughter's middle name is masculine (ie her father's name) or why all of my children have the same middle name. Then we moved to the middle east, and spent the next 20 years dealing with schools and government offices who were upset that my children's birth certificates didn't list their father's and grandfather's name as part of their name. And it was odd seeing my name written with my father and grandfather's names instead of my middle name, lol. Schools here frequently ask the kids to write out their full names on exam papers, which can take up most of the top of a page when they are long names. Lots of "first names" in Arabic are made up of more than one word, like "Servant of The Merciful" or "Light of the Faith." They're a bit shorter in Arabic, but still long when there are 3 of them plus the family name!
All I know is, I was raised Catholic and you were given a baptism name as a baby and a Confirmation name when you were deemed an adult in the eyes of God and both names were a Saint's name.
My middle name was just chosen by my parents for the sake of it. No reason. Actually it was a choice for my first name, but my dads cousin had a daughter with that name so they just chose it as my middle name. The same went for my Dad. My Grandfathers middle name is the hospital he was born at! Bevlyn... its a family favourite that’s for sure. So my daughters middle name is my husbands mothers name. Because she passed away when my husband was a little boy, we decided to honour her for her first granddaughter by naming her middle name after her.
You really tried not to be Anglo-centric in the video, which I really appreciate. This said, the very words Middle names are completely Anglo-centric, and are nearly meaningless in most other languages, even European ones. You hint to this, you go so far as to show that the words make no sense in Korean (most languages in tha region of the world have somewhat similar naming systems). That's all good, and I thank you for this. This being said, you never actually say that Middle names *today* are only mostly used in Anglophone countries. In Francophone countries, just to give an example, you very often have dual prénoms (first names), some with a hyphen, some without, and neither of these two first names are a middle name. For example, Marie-Claude or Jean Marie. Jean Marie is a dual first name; they are a prénom together. Among French Canadians and Acadians in Canada, children have traditionally been given *several* prénoms; girls get Marie as the very first of these, boys getting Joseph, and their usual name, the one you get called by is the last in the list, the closest to the family name. For example, a boy is named Joseph Martin Xavier Tremblay, called habitually Xavier Tremblay. None of these prénoms are middle names, and the first name is not his First name.
The South, in the US, has dual first names. They are rarer, but Billie-Sue, Joe-Anne, Billy-Jean, Bobby-Lee are the kinds of examples. I wonder if/how they relate to your examples?
@@TragoudistrosMPH I'm not sure they're related per se, but I wonder how those are dealt with in administrative settings. In my experience, in the US, dual first names, even with a hyphen, will be split up and the second half presumed a middle name, unless one puts up a fuss.
@@Mlle_Bleue haha, I'm not sure, actually... a good example from my great grandparents' generation was the use of initials as a name. One was TB and another was YD. The army changed one to Tom Beauford, and the other was given a name elsewhere. It may have been due to race, though too, but they'd probably do that to any person in those days (I'd hope, but who knows...)
Pretty much the same thing in Spain: if someone is Juan Carlos Suárez you can't call him Juan Suárez or Carlos Suárez. You can break it if a woman's name includes María, as in María Isabel who can (and usually are) called Isabel only.
Cool video :D In Portugal, we tend to represent both of our family's surnames, and not consider them as middle names at all, something like "First name" "maternal grandmother maiden name", "paternal grandmother maiden name", "mothers maiden name", "fathers surname". Also, in the past, there was a tradition to give two personal names, where boys got the first name Manuel and girls the first name Maria, which led to people just calling themselves by their middle name- like Maria Isabel just calling herself Isabel. I quite like having so many surnames, makes me feel closer to my ancestors, although it's a pain when you need to fill in forms xD
My mom wasn't given a middle name, I don't know why. When she married she used her last initial as her middle initial. She signed her name: first name, middle initial, last name. Thanks for the interesting videos.
Trust India to have other variants, particularly in South. 1 2 3 4 And there can be other variants along those lines too. I have seen many with four or five initials before their names.
I was raised in a family with 3 daughters (or I have 2 sisters.) I ended up having 3 daughters also. I give my daughters the same middle names of my sisters and I in exact order. I love family names!
My family has a tradition that all male children are given the first/middle name of paternal grandfather/ great uncles' if not first born. It makes the family tree very easy as the same 3/4 names get repeated down the generations. It's a Scottish tradition for "Mc"s meaning "son of". In Wales it's very common to go by a middle name. As sir names used to changed with what job you had, and first names were named for your father. So first names where often the same for several people in a family, and acted as a pseudo sir name.
The Korean and Chinese naming system can be even more complicated than "family name," "first name," and "middle name." A lot of families have a generational name that takes the spot of "first" or "middle." So, for instance, grandma can decide that everybody in the new generation has the character "Woo" in their name. She'll get grandchildren named Hyunwoo, Sonwoo, Woochol, etc. It connects people to family in ways similar to the patronymic (it's dad's mother who makes the decision) but also clearly demarcates generations of cousins in ways that patronymics and surnames don't.
1:53 My dad's side of the family passes down the middle name "Pyemont" Not sure when this started, but it's the firstborn son who gets the name, who then passes it on to his firstborn son, and so on. So there's this line of firstborn sons with that middle name. My dad has it, and so does my eldest brother and so did my grandad!
As others have mentioned before, some Middle names are used as inter-linguistic alternatives for people who grow up in a multilinguistic household. Many migrants to Anglophone countries will give their children a non-Anglophone and Anglophone names. Many people who migrated to Anglophone countries before the 1970s often had to adopt Anglophone names to avoid discrimination and optimise their chances of finding employment. Some examples * Bruce Jun-Fan Lee * Patrick Noriyuki Morita * Ken Kang-Joh Jeong Some parents give their children middle names that are literally the same as their given name but in a different language. e.g. + Stacy Anastasia Papadopoulos
Extra toes! Polydactyly!! I love genetic mutations! like extra fingers/toes (single mutation) which happens to be genetically dominate. Those who either expressed it were killed or potentially bred the trait out or now removed with surgery. I find it interesting how our choices of our environment have such an effect on our gene pool.
In my family, middle names are reserved for the godparents. My godfather was from a different culture than me, so i have a pretty funky middle name that always gets reactions from people.
In the Philippines we use our mom’s unmarried surname as middle name. For example, if my father is Jose Cruz Fernandez and my mom is Geraldine Manalo Ramos, then their child will follow Ramos Fernandez as middle name and surname. If you doesn’t have a middle name then you’re born by wedlock 😓
The video didn't explain well how it works in Spain anyway as Picasso was his mother's surname (the second) and Ruiz was his father's (first surname). As a child he would have been called Pablo Ruiz Picasso and possibly only Pablo Ruiz.
FYI, the Philippine convention is Spanish-derived. The structure is first name (you can have as many names here as your parents want) + the mother's maiden family name (we call this the "middle name") + the father's family name. The maiden family name is usually written as an initial. In some official government documents, the order of the family names is reversed, and a "y" (Spanish for "and") is put in between. My maternal granddad, for instance, went as either Felicisimo Quiba Azurin, Felicisimo Q. Azurin or Felicisimo Azurin y Quiba.
My middle name is a version of my maternal grandfather's first name. It does distinguish me from any number of similarly-named fellows. It does, however, confuse certain folk, which explains why "the XY me" has been receiving "Elle" magazine.
My family naming system is the basic slavic naming: Name +Child of +last name, so my name is Alexander Nikolaevich Shuysky, because my father is Nicholas Petrovich Shuysky, and my grandfather is Peter Alekseyevich, and my great grandfather is Aleksey and so on and on.
I think having a middle name is awesome because it happens that sometimes your parents gave a first name that you actually hate and by having a middle name you have a second choice to choose from and introduce yourself to others. I personally think that it kind of sucks when you get only one name, you totally dislike it and you just got to stick with that name. to me that's total tragedy.
I have noticed that people that use an initial for the first name generally get buildings named after them. Exp: the J. Douglas MacArthur Library. But that might be cognitive bias.
In the Philippines, the common practice is to have your middle name be your mother's surname, that way you can also trace someone's lineage via their mom's side.
My middle name is the name of two of my great-grandmothers. My brother is named after his grandfather, and his middle name is my dad's first name. Yay for naming after family!!!
In Portugal we don't call it "middle name", we call it "second name". That's because in Portugal the most common name extension is 4 names - 2 personal names, 2 family names (one from each parent) -, which means in the middle it most often is... a space. :D
I just love middle names because for those who have one it’s this innocent little secret that they carry around. At the same time it’s always fun to squeeze out the middle name of someone who’s embarrassed about it.
Nicknames are often used sort of like middle names. In esports, a players "gamertag" , or name they go by online, is often put in the middle in parentheses.
This is the first time that I have seen you on TH-cam. You have a great voice for narrating these videos. Interesting topic and well-done presentation.
In Serbia we go like this: - you have your given name,your middle name is your father's name and in the end you have your surname. Example: Mila Dragoje (her dad being Dragoje) Dragutinović.
My generation is the first in (I don’t actually know how many) to NOT have a Eunice. My grandmother was livid. She always talked about her cousin being angry that grandma “got to be the Eunice” and then neither of her granddaughters were Eunice. I intend to suggest it for a granddaughter some day. Not insist. Suggest.
I go by my middle name. My family just always called me by my middle name, and as a result, I felt uncomfortable when people called me by my first name at school. So whenever I introduce myself, I always call myself Carolina, and then people get confused when they see my name is Ana.
In the Philippines, our middle names are our mother's (maiden) surname. Also, it is normal for a Filipino to have multiple first names. So, basically, this is the arrangement of a Filipino name: Given Names + Middle name (mother's maiden surname) + Last Name (family name)
As a first gen born from Vietnamese immigrants, my middle name is my Vietnamese name while my first is my English one. I'm not sure how commonly among other families but this is what's done in mine.
The patronimic name in Russian probably comes from Viking origins, and they stood in place of a family name. As they still do in Icelandic naming convention where family name is a nonexistant category. They even started using family names in Sweden just later on, some time in the 19th century.
From what I've been told, around Europe a middle name was protection against the Fae and other such magic folks, who if you give your full name could use you as they wish, so having a middle name and keeping it hidden was a good thing and if you did share it would show a lot of trust to that person.
Middle names are also used to tell when your parents are really really mad at you.
Carlito, what di they do to you.
Oh yeah. If I heard my dad say my middle name I knew I’d done something wrong.
Charles May SARAH AAAAANNNNN!!!! *Shutters in Repressed childhood memories...*
Haha I told my kids this is the only reason they have middle names
Imagine how that was for Picasso growing up!
We have a special tradition in our family where the first born daughters Middle name is her mothers first name. It’s very special for us and goes back several generations. So example… Rachael Victoria. My mother is Victoria Jean. Her mother is Jean Emily. And my great grandmother is Emily Rose and so on and so on. If I had a daughter her middle name would be (first name) Rachael. It’s something special that we Made up for ourselves and is merely ornamental But still holds a special place in our hearts.
That is so cool! I love that tradition of linking the generations together through names!
Are you Greek?
Kimberly Clark thank you!
Tina Thompson hi! No I’m not.
So do you and your siblings all have your mother name
In Mexico you tend to have four names that usually go:
Personal Name + 2nd Personal Name + Father's Surname + Mother's Surname
For example my name is Carmen Maria Randolph Fajardo
The shortened version for introductions is typically just your personal name and your father's surname. Plus you also have people with compound personal names.
If you have a child which surname would they get from you? The one from your father's side or your mother's?
@@linkiebrown8477 Commonly it's from the father's side. In my case, for example, I have my dad's surname (Salim) first, but let's say my husband is a Johnson. If we have a child, the order would be Name Middle-Name Johnson Salim, since the dad's surname goes first. Some exceptions exist, but usually it's like this.
Btw I'm not Mexican, but this applies to most Latin American countries
@@linkiebrown8477 it's always the father's surname. I don't have a middle name but have both my parents surname but in the USA they don't understand that so they only go by by you're first name and father's surname. The DMV messed that up when I first went to get an ID the most important documents had my 3 names but my other documents from school would only show 2. It's more of a sentimental thing, it's nice to also have the mother's surname it's like saying the child (your name) of (father's surname & mother's surname).
But sometimes you can have all of your parents last names, for example my name is Ana Luiza de Carvalho Noleto Silva Goldstein, so is, my first name + my second name + my maternal grandmother’s last name + my maternal grandfather’s last name + my paternal grandmother’s last name + my paternal grandfather’s last name, so your lineage isn’t based on your parents but on your grandparents
In Uruguay we have a first and second last name. It used to be [Names] [Father's first last name] [Mother's first last name]. Since same sex marriage was approved, you get to choose the order of last names, as long as all the children from the same couple have the same last names in the same order.
I don't have a middle name and people often freak out when I tell then :o
My mother doesn't either. I always thought that was weird, especially since she gave me two middle names.
@Asiboe You're an unholy abomination, incapable of human empathy and undeserving of love or the comfort that can only be bestowed upon you by your fellow man. Your soul is impure and sullied, and you must purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. JK :)
Voz -Lame...😒
@@voz3704 Mood
George Washington didn't.
I literally just asked this question at lunch and no one knew the answer. Man, you guys make me feel so smart after watching your videos!
this is exactly why i love watching these :)
I'm Romanian and it's common practice to give children multiple first names (we call them prenames). It's usually done to pay homage to some significant relative or for religious reasons (one name can be a saint's name given to protect the child). Most of the time, people have a name their mother chose and a name their father chose, or a name the couple chose together and a name that relatives chose (grandparents, uncles/aunts, godparents). Also, sometimes there's a hyphen added between the two prenames to signify that they're equally important. However, most people only go by their first prename (first first name) because they rarely like both of them. Even parents only call the child by the first prename, but the other one is also used in every legal document. Unless the full name is written, legal documents aren't valid. In these instances, the hyphen matters A LOT. I've had collegues struggle with their school documents because of a misplaced hyphen.
Also, we sign all legal documents with our family name (last name) first, followed by the prenames in the order from the birth certificate. However, in informal settings, we present ourselves starting with our prefered prename.
The middle initial is a whole other story. Some legal documents use the father's first name initials between the last and first name of the child for a more detailed identification.
Let's take this example: a child named Popescu I. Maria-Ioana, Popescu Ion's child. Popescu is her last name (family name), I. is her father's first name initial and Maria-Ioana are her prenames. She would most likely go by Maria, since it's the first prename.
I'm really curious about the origin of these practices in my country, I haven't really thought about this until now. Thank you for the video 🙌🏻
I'm Romanian too and i've always complained to my parents for giving me 3 prenames (2 middle names + the first name). My name is Ioana-Silvia-Mihaela (mereu uit cratima pe acte). Ioana is the name my mother wanted, Silvia is the name my father wanted and Mihaela is the name everyone else thought i should get because i was born around Saint Michael's day. Everyone just calls me Ioana and it's a pain in the ass because it's one of the most common names in Romania...
In Latvia we sometimes get two surnames which can happen by marriage usually. In stead of changing the surname to your spouse's you get to have both. Only one first name though, which is why we just call it "name". There are some instances of middle names but that's extremely rare. Under legal circumstances, it is common to say the surname first then first names. In casual circumstances we sometimes just name the family you belong to and say your name, something like -- if your surname is Ciociou, your family would be known as the Ciocious, and you'd be called as Ciocious' Anda. Btw Anda is a Latvian name too.
@@UndeadCrabstick I didn't know Anda is used in Latvia as well. In Romania is quite rare, it surely came from another country, probably from the north-northeast. I rarely find someone with the same name as me and people often mispronounce it as Ada or Ana (shocking, since it's so short and straightforward already). Thanks for the info 😊
some people (especially girls as far as i know?) here in belgium have a double hyphen name (i.e. marie-louise or anne-sophie) and i've never understood why tbh
0:15 yes:to know when your mom is pissed off at you
So true, I don't think my full name has ever been used outside of the context of my mom being pissed off at me.
Nicknames -- how do they work?! .. you don't need to make it official to call your child by different names for different situations. (I have a single 4-syllable personal name, the "we are currently unhappy with you"-name I was called had 6 syllables, including a different surname 🤣
@@chrisserrific Same here!
Yep i agree. Nothing quite as terrifying as when you hear both first and last names.
So true. The only time my parents said my full name is when I was in trouble.
I have names in 4 different languages, Vietnamese, Chinese, Cantonese, and I made my own English name in court cause I'm tired of people butchering my beautiful name. But guess what, people still don't know how to pronounce my white name, how hard is it to say Hailey?
Seriously, I agree with you. Some people make things more difficult than is necessary. All it is is "hail, as in hail a cab" with ey at the end. Maybe ppl don't get that either
@@rachelgarber1423 Yeah, but that isn't how you pronounce Hailey!
Haha I shortened first my name to three letters for people to pronounce and people to still butcher that. 😂🤣🙃 Is that David So in your pfp? 🙌🏼
they can't sue you if they can't name you. 👀
I have a friend called Alyssa and most of her teachers can’t get her name right on the register like is it that hard to see the letters to pronounce. I thought teachers were smart 😂
Most teachers keep pronouncing it like Aleesa or Aliza when it’s literally Al i ssa
I was named by Filipino naming conventions, so my second name is part of my legal first name and my middle name is my mother's maiden name. Because of that, I always write my second name immediately after my first. It caused loads of problems when I was in elementary school. "Stop writing your middle name." "It's not my middle name. It's my second name."
You just forgot to add that, at least in countries like Brazil, middle names are not as common as in America. Instead, Brazilians use NAME + MOM'S SURNAME + DAD'S SURNAME.
We regard the mother's surname as the "middle name". I didn't know they didn't do that in a lot of countries.
So, if a family has 5 children,all the children have their mother's surname? Kindly educate me.
Wow 😮 i didn’t know, I thought it was the same everywhere in Latin America in my country we use one or two middle names, there’s people with more than that but that’s unusual. Is interesting to know Brazilians are different
That's just the Portuguese tradition that used to be kept in Brazil, but it's not that rigid anymore.
Same in Portugal! But we often have 2 first names as well, so it's super long
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
His name was my name too!
What happens when you go out? Do ppl shout? Do they point at you and say, "there goes JJJS?"..asking for a friend
@@carolyndarley1045 LALALALALALALALAAA
😂😂😂
Oddly enough Hungarians put their last name before their first name unlike any other Europeans (and they rarely have second names). The Hungarian language also doesn’t fit in with the rest of Europe, only being very distantly related to Finnish and Estonian.
magyar rocks yo
Romanians do the same. We use last + first name for official, formal and professional settings and first + last name for informal settings. So, for example, we'd never sign a contract with our first name before our last, but we will sign personal emails this way. Also, we usually present ourselves with our first and last name, but when we're being introduced to some authority figure, we'll probably say the family name first. Almost all fill-in forms first ask for our last name (family name) and it's also written in this order on our ID. Weird, right?
@@andaciocoiu In hungary, I think, we never put our first name first, not even in informal situations. (Only on facebook, but some people even put their first name is the surname section, so it appears in the correct order lol)
Hungarian here, we do have second names, more than half of the people I know have them, including me. (But yes, it is less common than in the rest of Europe.)
Due to the Huns maybe?
It’s true that middle names are not used and kind of make no sense in Korea. I’m from America and have two middle names, and when I studied abroad there there was a lot of confusion at first because no administrative database thought I was enrolled/existed, until I realized I needed to use my middle names to search. On all paperwork, there are only boxes for given and family names, but since no part of a name is disregarded in Korea I had to cram my three given names into that box made for two Korean characters, otherwise it would cause administrative confusion. Almost every Korean there is named using exactly three syllables (one for family and two for given,) so when professors came upon my nine syllable name it always broke their stride in role call 😂
Same problem in Japan :D
When I was in korea people were surprised by my middle name haha
Apparently, it was a Mexican trend once to name all girls Maria and all boys Jose in a family. The middle name then served as their identifier and usually was selected from the Catholic calendar. I found this out when my dad, Jose, said his brother, Jose, had just pasted away. I had to ask him which Jose. Afterwards his sister clarified that all her brothers were Jose (even the uncles I didn’t call Jose) and all the girls were Maria, (which none went by).
I think this trend was probably specific to a time and region and more than likely it was typical of a specific socioeconomic class. Maria is so common as a first name that it has its own abbreviation and in the case with my maternal aunt, she doesn’t even consider it her first name, more of a prefix to her name. On my mom’s side that aunt is the only one named Maria and the only one with two names.
I think its common in a lot of catholic countries. In Brazil it was common some decades ago. My mother and all of her sisters have a first name plus "Maria". My grandmother and her sisters have the opposite scheme, with "Maria" followed by a second first name.
Here in my country, the Philippines too. Although, from what I've seen, it's probably a Spanish-Portuguese (i.e. Iberian) cultural thing than a Catholic thing @Ivan Martins...
@@moondust2365 It may be, but someone else commented that it is common also in some francophone countries.
My mom had a friend that was called Mary and she corrected that person that all her sisters are Mary so that isn't what she goes by.
What about boys named José María and girls named María José? How'd that come about?
About “middle names” in Chinese languages, we don’t actually have a concept of middle name. People usually have a surname, and their “first name”. Both of them can be consisted of one to two characters. There is no middle name in Chinese naming system. What resembles as a second(-ary) name called ‘字’ was used by ancient figures such as poets, writers, rulers etc. One chooses a secondary name for themselves that represents their character, ambition etc. It went out of use completely after WWII
But we do sometimes use the middle character as a generation marker. It's more of a diaspora thing, though. You can find shining examples of it in the personal names of Ming emperors, and also most Vietnamese names.
Qiyunwu oh yeah that’s true! But the middle character only functions as part of a name instead of by itself, I think its the main difference. Also, it works if the family keeps the tradition or knows the lineage really well. People, family, heirlooms... got displaced because of the wars and regime changes, which IMO is really sad.
In South Korea its family name, generational name, personal name.
My step-mom who is from China says women do not take their husbands last night. Tho she did take “Golden” when she moved to America with my father.
My niece has 2 names. She has her English one but also a Chinese one in correlation with the Chinese calendar.
However it is common to pick a Western name when moving abroad or to socialize with foreigners.
In Africa ( specifically Ghana the ewe tribe) we give 4 name English name+traditional name+spiritual name ( which depends on the day you're born on)+ surname..
So I am Marian Enam Esi Kushigbor.
Here in Brazil is really common to have two first names, and both matricarcal and partriacal surnames.
But I got two surnames from my father anyway having a total of 5 names
João Victor Araújo e Rocha de Carvalho
Or like my brothers,
Tiago Mário Araújo e Rocha de Carvalho
And
Caio Bruno Araújo e Rocha de Carvalho
@@funkysagancat3295 Awesome! :)
My own name can stand as an example of Funky Sagan's first statement.
Nilce
People of certain backgrounds here also may have an ethnic name as well, and it usually goes between the first name(s) and surnames.
My name, for instance, is [Portuguese name] [ethnic name] [mom's surname] [dad's surname]. Whether I'll use my Portuguese or ethnic name depends on where I am, who I'm talking to, how close I am to them (my ethnic name tends to be restricted to family, the community and very close friends) and so on. It's literally happened that someone didn't know I was myself because they didn't know the other name lol
My mother gave me a masculine first name (followed by a masculine sir name) so when I applied for jobs I wouldn’t be sexualized (when looking at my resume) or looked down upon as a woman. However, she did give me a feminine middle name so I could still appreciate my woman hood and still have a way to identity myself as a woman. I think she did this because she was looked down a lot for being a woman and just wanted the best for me.
i thought it was so you know you're in trouble when your mum yells at you
middle names were a godsend when I worked in registrations - being able to differentiate all the different John Smith's was extremely useful when dealing with personal records. I'd always breathe a sigh of relief when I saw people's middle names on file.
What about the African traditions of naming a children. Lets shed some light on that too.
I had a doctor from Ghana and he told me they have a fotmal name and a name that indicates the day of they week you were born on that you went by in the family. I have no idea what happened if you had 5 boys all born on a Friday.
Naming children according to week days is specific to certain cultures. In Nigeria the Hausas in the north practice it mostly.
i found it odd that this was omitted, despite the fact that this was the first continent to even classify names. I added a contribution earlier about Benin because i spent holidays there in a host family ( 3 whole months ) .
but I am half black and that part is southern african. as an eSwatini , you usually get only last name and its a clan name which depending on the region there are about 4 or 5, that is if your entire lineage can be trace on that side. and one first name , which is usually created according to the circumstances of your birth .
if you are adopted, ( very common over there ), your name is still a botanical name like most swazi but its the month of adoption that becomes your last name. I believe in swaziland its Imphala , my mom was adopted by Swazi couple, so Imphala became her last name and her first name is the same as that the adoptive grand mother.
I'm a Kenyan of the Kikuyu tribe. We have 42 different tribes and cultural practices and naming is huge. Among the Kikuyu everybody is given two names at birth and if one is religious or westernized is given a Bible or western name. The last name is always the family name from the father side. The first names were forced on our fathers to by the colonial masters. There is a whole history behind it because we rotate our names. The first daughter or son is always names in the paternal parents, the second son or daughter is always named after the maternal parents, the third son or daughter is named after the first brother or sister of the father and so on... switching in that order. If they are twins in the family... whichever side of the birth order they are born in they are not separated. So the two names come in handy when one has a sibling with the same name, then the other name is used. And if both names are used then the name is altered to mean the version of Junior of that name. Also if a name is given to a child and the child dies, the name can be repeated to another child. But if that other child dies they discard the name and give a name that family members know what they were supposed to be and the name is lost to this family... so we may never have met but if you have family members with similar names, then most likely were distant relatives.... sorry for being lengthy
African children generally don't live out the year, so they don't normally name them.
As a name nerd, I loooved hearing about this history! I was all so fascinating! Thanks for sharing!
Name nerd?
This is so interesting! I always heard that we had middle names because names have power, and people who know your full name have power over you, so middle names are like a secret name, so people don't know your full name and have power over you. Silly I know, but I really like it even if it totally isn't true 😂
I love this! It sure feels like so. My full name means: God is gracious, wished child, and the one who deserves love 😍 and Bullrush, the weed 😅😂
In the Arabian peninsula, middle names can stretch for as long as you want, because they reflect patrial generations (father's name -> grandfather's name -> great grandfather's name -> ...etc) and then the last name. Usually with a "ben" (son of) or a "bint" (daughter of) in between the names. The last name is actually not considered a "name" but more of an adjective that reflects the tribe your family linage is coming from.
In official papers they usually ask for either the tripartite full name with (first name + 2 middle names + last name) or the quaternary
full name (first name + 3 middle names + last name).
Yuzan Its the same in Somalia. My name is a extension of my fathers lineage. He has memorized up to 40 ish.
Most of Asia and Africa is like that
@@s.a.8548 I know that in Japan and China it's a totally different system. I'm not sure about the rest of east asia and south east asia.
That Hamilton reference tho.
Came to the comments to see anyone else who saw it lol
madmakoe101 same here haha
omg yes
Hello group of people that came to the comments specifically for that 👋Can I join
r/woosh
My grandmother's family had a fairly long running tradition of naming all the girls Margaret and calling them by their middle names. This made it way easier to trace maternal lines in the family. My grandmother's family was mainly English and Irish though.
It stopped during my mother's generation though :(.
How fun, my grandmother and mother had Margareta as middle names, but my mom hated it so much she took it off. I believe even my great grandmother had Margareta in her name. It would have been fun to keep it.
But instead we have four Maureens on my fathers side 😀 Hope that will continue ❤️ (both me and my daughter have it for our second names!)
When I was at MIT in 1960, there was a sign on the door of the Dean of Students, which said, "Be prepared to spell your name in full. If unsure, check identification."
Initially I thought this was a joke, but later considered that it could be due to the multiple saint's names some Catholics had.
As a kid I would forget if my second and third name had a hyphen between them or not (they do). I still double-checked this when filling out important papers in my teens.
I couldn't spell my middle name until I was nine because it's a very Catholic Spanish name (Montserrat). My (white) dad almost misspelled it on my birth certificate. I also knew a Thai kid who couldn't pronounce or spell his 20ish character last name.
My sister name is Montserrat and we call her monse, or moon.... and i call her monches
I went by a nickname as a kid. To this day I still have to spell my first name to myself when I write it on forms
@@palomajune1863 I only found out a couple of years ago that I had been misspelling one of my middle names for my entirely life... that also reminds me of one of friends who had been mispronouncing his own first name for his entire life, and his mother just never bothered to correct him.
Thank you for this! I literally have six names! ( Two first, two middle and two last) after learning the origin as to why this may occur I now take pride in all my of my many names!
Two of my older brothers used their middle names to the extent that I was ten before I learned that those weren't their first names.
In Spain we normally have a personal name, our father’s first surname and our mother’s first surname. It’s getting less and less common to have middle names, but if we do, it has something to do with our Christian name or something like that. A friend of mine needed to be called Dakota de las Mercedes, because otherwise she couldn’t have been baptized back in the day, hahaha.
I'm from Sweden and there is a fairly recent trend in my mother's side of the family of giving children 'middle' names in front of their personal names, or sticking the personal name between two 'middle' names. My mom has the initials V.I.B but goes by I, I have the initials A.P.L.K.B but have always gone by Paula and my brother N.A.R.K.B goes by R (we also have both of our parents' last names, to confuse things further). It's convenient when telemarketers want to talk to V, A or N and none of them are in. ;)
My mum wanted my brother and I to take on one of our grandparents names so that they wouldn't be lost. My brother's middle name is therefore rather unusual "Hamilton", which is more often a surname than a first name. The Germans have rules on assigning names and did not allow Hamilton as a first or middle name, so my mum took her birth certificate which showed that it was actually my grandfather's first name so they allowed it. Luckily the clerk didn't realize that all of my grandpa's first and middle names were actually surnames. I guess my great grandparents thought it was funny to do so :D
Having your middle name from on of your ancestors is actually a great way to be a part of your family's history. I somehow feel closer connected to my grandma, who I was named after, without ever having met her.
ITS MOM NOT MUM
My brother was named after his paternal grandfather--Claude Odom--and my grandmother's family--Anderson. He was named Claude Andrew. I loved my mother's thoughtfulness.
Middle name for me is like a secret name that only close friends get to learn.
French names are weird. No middle names but multiple first names. And if you're Catholic? Then you've also got Marie or Joseph in there.
Plus you get sons named after the father while having their own name.
So for example my grandfather was Joseph-Jean-Marc, and went by Jean. His 3 sons were Joseph-Jean-Marc, Joseph-Jean-Luc, and Joseph-Jean-Benoit. All 3 of THEM going by the last name in the 3. So Marc, Luc, and Benoit.
Although it kinda got disrupted with my brother bc of the Scottish tradition of naming first sons directly after the father on my mom's side, so he's Joseph-Luc-André, but instead of going by André, he goes by Luc, and Luc-André around my dad's side of the family to avoid confusion.
And then my sister and I have Marie hyphenated into our first names but we have middle names 🤷♂️
[Idk how true this is for French people elsewhere, we're French Canadian, and I know a lot of linguistic stuff is different for us]
One thing to note is that in Pablo Picasso's name, everything before Ruiz y Picasso are given names. Ruiz is his paternal family name and Picasso is his maternal family name. So while we usually talk about him with his maternal last name his paternal last name is legally the principal name he would use.
Just found this channel and I'm super stoked that not only do you give fun information, but I'm really glad that it's hosted by a woman of color. Keep up the good work, and I'm definitely subscribing!
Man what does her being a black woman make the video better or worse ?
@@mrronron7328 he/she is the type who acuses innocent people of racism
@@amelieblanche920 I feel like it indeed
Middle names are important in the film industry too. Many unions and guilds such as SAG-AFTRA and the WGA/DGA require all members to have unique names for the purposes of screen credits. This is the reason many actors, writers and directors use their middle name or initial.
One of my favorite channels! I get excited everything there is a new video! I love my first and middle name because they are super unique.
1:35 That Hamilton reference tho
r/woosh
@@Perririri what do you mean?
FINALLY SOMEONE SAW IT 😂😂😂❤
@@Perririri why are you going around wooshing people for no reason bro
In my family, the naming scheme is as follows:
First name (chosen by the parents),
Middle name (usually the mother's maiden name)
Last name (family name)
Arabs don't have middle names like that, it goes like this first name then father's name then surname (which is family/tribe name). because linage is important amongst arabs we have father's name then grandfather's name then great grandfather's name etc can go for a long way back. for example Sarah Mohamed Hussain Saleh Al-Murri
As someone who has no clue of the Arabic language, I've always thought it was very curious to see Arab names, mostly because there isn't a great variation between them... Or maybe I just wasn't exposed to many different names.
@@kauemoura There are definitely more variations than you've been exposed to, but there tend to be a pattern of names within the same region, usually for male names as fathers tend to name their children (first born mostly) as their own fathers. So it's not unfamiliar to see a man who has his grandfather's name while his father could have his great grandfather's name as well 😅. So you might meet a Muhammad Omar Muhammad Omar (insert family name) which IS confusing even for natives. Girl's on the other hand have a better chance at having a new name as the tradition of naming a girls after her own grandmother is less previlant. I'm sure other Arabs might have different experiences other than I mentioned but this is mine as someone living in the peninsula region 🤷🏻♀️
@@wb8695 Oh, I see, what about surnames, are they also of patronymic and work related origin, such as "Johnson, son of John" or "Smith"? Or based off of place names? (I mean, I'm sure wikipedia must have an article on the topic, but since I'm here, haha).
I am Mexican American and don’t have a middle name but when I got married in Lebanon any official document asked for my fathers name. This was used as my “middle” name.
I was waiting for the video to mention Arabic names. I'm an American married to an Arab, and we followed Arabic naming tradition with our children. In the US, people were confused why our children didn't have middle names. I thought that was less confusing than trying to explain why my daughter's middle name is masculine (ie her father's name) or why all of my children have the same middle name. Then we moved to the middle east, and spent the next 20 years dealing with schools and government offices who were upset that my children's birth certificates didn't list their father's and grandfather's name as part of their name. And it was odd seeing my name written with my father and grandfather's names instead of my middle name, lol. Schools here frequently ask the kids to write out their full names on exam papers, which can take up most of the top of a page when they are long names. Lots of "first names" in Arabic are made up of more than one word, like "Servant of The Merciful" or "Light of the Faith." They're a bit shorter in Arabic, but still long when there are 3 of them plus the family name!
As far as I know, back int the day, having a lot of names like Pablo Picasso was a way of showing how rich your family was.
In Italy people don't usually have middle names. I have one though, Annamaria, after my paternal grandma's first name.
All I know is, I was raised Catholic and you were given a baptism name as a baby and a Confirmation name when you were deemed an adult in the eyes of God and both names were a Saint's name.
anyone else noticed that her style changes partway through? lol
Yup...her hair change is first shown at 2:23
No I was too busy concentrating on her flailing arms the whole time.
Its the Middle Look.
My middle name was just chosen by my parents for the sake of it. No reason. Actually it was a choice for my first name, but my dads cousin had a daughter with that name so they just chose it as my middle name.
The same went for my Dad.
My Grandfathers middle name is the hospital he was born at! Bevlyn... its a family favourite that’s for sure.
So my daughters middle name is my husbands mothers name. Because she passed away when my husband was a little boy, we decided to honour her for her first granddaughter by naming her middle name after her.
You really tried not to be Anglo-centric in the video, which I really appreciate. This said, the very words Middle names are completely Anglo-centric, and are nearly meaningless in most other languages, even European ones. You hint to this, you go so far as to show that the words make no sense in Korean (most languages in tha region of the world have somewhat similar naming systems). That's all good, and I thank you for this. This being said, you never actually say that Middle names *today* are only mostly used in Anglophone countries. In Francophone countries, just to give an example, you very often have dual prénoms (first names), some with a hyphen, some without, and neither of these two first names are a middle name. For example, Marie-Claude or Jean Marie. Jean Marie is a dual first name; they are a prénom together. Among French Canadians and Acadians in Canada, children have traditionally been given *several* prénoms; girls get Marie as the very first of these, boys getting Joseph, and their usual name, the one you get called by is the last in the list, the closest to the family name. For example, a boy is named Joseph Martin Xavier Tremblay, called habitually Xavier Tremblay. None of these prénoms are middle names, and the first name is not his First name.
The South, in the US, has dual first names. They are rarer, but Billie-Sue, Joe-Anne, Billy-Jean, Bobby-Lee are the kinds of examples. I wonder if/how they relate to your examples?
@@TragoudistrosMPH I'm not sure they're related per se, but I wonder how those are dealt with in administrative settings. In my experience, in the US, dual first names, even with a hyphen, will be split up and the second half presumed a middle name, unless one puts up a fuss.
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"
@@Mlle_Bleue haha, I'm not sure, actually... a good example from my great grandparents' generation was the use of initials as a name. One was TB and another was YD.
The army changed one to Tom Beauford, and the other was given a name elsewhere. It may have been due to race, though too, but they'd probably do that to any person in those days (I'd hope, but who knows...)
Pretty much the same thing in Spain: if someone is Juan Carlos Suárez you can't call him Juan Suárez or Carlos Suárez. You can break it if a woman's name includes María, as in María Isabel who can (and usually are) called Isabel only.
Cool video :D In Portugal, we tend to represent both of our family's surnames, and not consider them as middle names at all, something like "First name" "maternal grandmother maiden name", "paternal grandmother maiden name", "mothers maiden name", "fathers surname". Also, in the past, there was a tradition to give two personal names, where boys got the first name Manuel and girls the first name Maria, which led to people just calling themselves by their middle name- like Maria Isabel just calling herself Isabel. I quite like having so many surnames, makes me feel closer to my ancestors, although it's a pain when you need to fill in forms xD
The origin of Standard 52-card deck.
My mom wasn't given a middle name, I don't know why. When she married she used her last initial as her middle initial. She signed her name: first name, middle initial, last name. Thanks for the interesting videos.
Trust India to have other variants, particularly in South.
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And there can be other variants along those lines too. I have seen many with four or five initials before their names.
I'm Italian, I have 5 middle names ( of patron saints and of my grandmothers ) but they're never used
In my country, the general naming rule is [father’s patrilineal surname]+[mother’s matrilineal surname]+[middle name]+[given name].
I love this host!
I was raised in a family with 3 daughters (or I have 2 sisters.) I ended up having 3 daughters also. I give my daughters the same middle names of my sisters and I in exact order. I love family names!
My dad's name as a Russian patronymic would me weird because he has an extremely Scottish first name. Thus I have a very Irish name.
ERYN in my opinion you should’ve said Gaelic...
Though I have an Irish name anyway. (Kaelyn)
Use mac
My family has a tradition that all male children are given the first/middle name of paternal grandfather/ great uncles' if not first born. It makes the family tree very easy as the same 3/4 names get repeated down the generations. It's a Scottish tradition for "Mc"s meaning "son of".
In Wales it's very common to go by a middle name. As sir names used to changed with what job you had, and first names were named for your father. So first names where often the same for several people in a family, and acted as a pseudo sir name.
The Korean and Chinese naming system can be even more complicated than "family name," "first name," and "middle name." A lot of families have a generational name that takes the spot of "first" or "middle." So, for instance, grandma can decide that everybody in the new generation has the character "Woo" in their name. She'll get grandchildren named Hyunwoo, Sonwoo, Woochol, etc. It connects people to family in ways similar to the patronymic (it's dad's mother who makes the decision) but also clearly demarcates generations of cousins in ways that patronymics and surnames don't.
I don't have one
me neither
1:53 My dad's side of the family passes down the middle name "Pyemont"
Not sure when this started, but it's the firstborn son who gets the name, who then passes it on to his firstborn son, and so on. So there's this line of firstborn sons with that middle name. My dad has it, and so does my eldest brother and so did my grandad!
As others have mentioned before, some Middle names are used as inter-linguistic alternatives for people who grow up in a multilinguistic household.
Many migrants to Anglophone countries will give their children a non-Anglophone and Anglophone names. Many people who migrated to Anglophone countries before the 1970s often had to adopt Anglophone names to avoid discrimination and optimise their chances of finding employment.
Some examples
* Bruce Jun-Fan Lee
* Patrick Noriyuki Morita
* Ken Kang-Joh Jeong
Some parents give their children middle names that are literally the same as their given name but in a different language.
e.g.
+ Stacy Anastasia Papadopoulos
I love middle names. I know all of my friend's middle names, and I never forget any of them. Even if they told me several years ago.
Extra toes!
Polydactyly!! I love genetic mutations! like extra fingers/toes (single mutation) which happens to be genetically dominate. Those who either expressed it were killed or potentially bred the trait out or now removed with surgery.
I find it interesting how our choices of our environment have such an effect on our gene pool.
Lol What did this have to do with the video?
Apparently an extra little finger is more common in Europe and an extra thumb is more common in Africa.
In my family, middle names are reserved for the godparents. My godfather was from a different culture than me, so i have a pretty funky middle name that always gets reactions from people.
I throughly enjoyed the presentation of this video.
In the Philippines we use our mom’s unmarried surname as middle name. For example, if my father is Jose Cruz Fernandez and my mom is Geraldine Manalo Ramos, then their child will follow Ramos Fernandez as middle name and surname. If you doesn’t have a middle name then you’re born by wedlock 😓
I was thought so much more then I expected. Thank you and I will need to watch again to keep all this info straight.
Picasso was a misogynist and child predator. I'm sure there are some examples of people with long names who werent trash.
The video didn't explain well how it works in Spain anyway as Picasso was his mother's surname (the second) and Ruiz was his father's (first surname). As a child he would have been called Pablo Ruiz Picasso and possibly only Pablo Ruiz.
Did he stay away from Spain because of Franco?
Where have this channel been all my life
FYI, the Philippine convention is Spanish-derived. The structure is first name (you can have as many names here as your parents want) + the mother's maiden family name (we call this the "middle name") + the father's family name. The maiden family name is usually written as an initial. In some official government documents, the order of the family names is reversed, and a "y" (Spanish for "and") is put in between. My maternal granddad, for instance, went as either Felicisimo Quiba Azurin, Felicisimo Q. Azurin or Felicisimo Azurin y Quiba.
My middle name is a version of my maternal grandfather's first name. It does distinguish me from any number of similarly-named fellows. It does, however, confuse certain folk, which explains why "the XY me" has been receiving "Elle" magazine.
Our ancestors having middle names is helpful when attempting to research a family tree.
My family naming system is the basic slavic naming: Name +Child of +last name, so my name is Alexander Nikolaevich Shuysky, because my father is Nicholas Petrovich Shuysky, and my grandfather is Peter Alekseyevich, and my great grandfather is Aleksey and so on and on.
I go by my middle name. I was 7 when I found this out. It’s a pretty common Spanish tradition
I think having a middle name is awesome because it happens that sometimes your parents gave a first name that you actually hate and by having a middle name you have a second choice to choose from and introduce yourself to others.
I personally think that it kind of sucks when you get only one name, you totally dislike it and you just got to stick with that name.
to me that's total tragedy.
I have noticed that people that use an initial for the first name generally get buildings named after them. Exp: the J. Douglas MacArthur Library. But that might be cognitive bias.
In the Philippines, the common practice is to have your middle name be your mother's surname, that way you can also trace someone's lineage via their mom's side.
I'd love a video on Native American naming traditions. I know almost nothing about them.
My middle name is the name of two of my great-grandmothers. My brother is named after his grandfather, and his middle name is my dad's first name. Yay for naming after family!!!
My family just does it because there's several names they like so couldn't settle for just one.
I am SO using this in my classes! This video was SO GOOD! Thank you!!!
In Portugal we don't call it "middle name", we call it "second name". That's because in Portugal the most common name extension is 4 names - 2 personal names, 2 family names (one from each parent) -, which means in the middle it most often is... a space. :D
Malay here, we don't have middle name, our name goes like this, +
I just love middle names because for those who have one it’s this innocent little secret that they carry around.
At the same time it’s always fun to squeeze out the middle name of someone who’s embarrassed about it.
Nicknames are often used sort of like middle names. In esports, a players "gamertag" , or name they go by online, is often put in the middle in parentheses.
This is the first time that I have seen you on TH-cam. You have a great voice for narrating these videos. Interesting topic and well-done presentation.
In Hispanic culture you either have a first and (probably hyphenated) surname or 1200 names, there's no middle ground
This episode is unique and interesting. Thanks.
Aaaaaand the award for most utterances of the word "moniker" in a TH-cam video goes to...
In Serbia we go like this:
- you have your given name,your middle name is your father's name and in the end you have your surname.
Example:
Mila Dragoje (her dad being Dragoje) Dragutinović.
LMAO my great-grandma is 94 (will be 95 this May) and her name is literally Eunice 😂😂😂
My generation is the first in (I don’t actually know how many) to NOT have a Eunice. My grandmother was livid. She always talked about her cousin being angry that grandma “got to be the Eunice” and then neither of her granddaughters were Eunice. I intend to suggest it for a granddaughter some day. Not insist. Suggest.
The sixth toe 😄 I learnt a lot seriously. I like this program.
I go by my middle name. My family just always called me by my middle name, and as a result, I felt uncomfortable when people called me by my first name at school. So whenever I introduce myself, I always call myself Carolina, and then people get confused when they see my name is Ana.
I don’t have a middle name,but my husband and both our sons do have middle names.
Just like CHarlize Theron who doesn't have a middle name.
I'll never forget a friend I had, she has 5 names plus her parents surnames back then it blew my mind.
In the Philippines, our middle names are our mother's (maiden) surname. Also, it is normal for a Filipino to have multiple first names.
So, basically, this is the arrangement of a Filipino name:
Given Names + Middle name (mother's maiden surname) + Last Name (family name)
As a first gen born from Vietnamese immigrants, my middle name is my Vietnamese name while my first is my English one. I'm not sure how commonly among other families but this is what's done in mine.
The patronimic name in Russian probably comes from Viking origins, and they stood in place of a family name. As they still do in Icelandic naming convention where family name is a nonexistant category. They even started using family names in Sweden just later on, some time in the 19th century.
Family names weren't a wide-spread thing in Russia until XIX century, actually. They were reserved for nobles and other unique people.
From what I've been told, around Europe a middle name was protection against the Fae and other such magic folks, who if you give your full name could use you as they wish, so having a middle name and keeping it hidden was a good thing and if you did share it would show a lot of trust to that person.