Baby Middle Name

There is quite certainly no legal requirement that a baby be given a middle name. They are, in fact, totally optional.

Several people I know from my mother’s generation (born in the 1950s) have no middle name. In two cases, I was told that their families came to California from the southern portion of the United States, where if you had a middle name it was going to be used whether you liked it or not. So, by giving a baby the name Brenda, with no middle name, should (in theory) ensure that she won’t be called “Brenda Sue” all the time.

Other parents forgo middle names in girls assuming that if they marry they will take on their husband’s last name and shift their maiden name to the middle. With no pre-existing middle name, there’s nothing to displace.

Some kids might feel slighted or left out with no middle name, but it’s just as likely that they’ll enjoy the unique-ness of not having one at all. Maybe they’d like to pick their own, informally or even legally, some day!

Finally, and this may be the most significant argument against a middle name, maybe the first and last names mesh so perfectly together that a middle name would “spoil” it. If nothing seems to fit, don’t force in a middle name just because you feel you have to!