2 Middle Names? #MulticulturalProblems

TomekiaB

My DH is slavic and moved to the USA as a young adult his culture has a patronymic name tradition. So, DH's MN is Sergeyevich and DH's sister's MN is Sergeyevna (So, their dad is Sergey. So, by tradition EVERY child my DH has would be DH name + male/female suffix). My husband rarely cares about traditions and is REALLY attached to this tradition. My family is part scandinavian and we also have partonymic names but they became surnames when we assimilated (i.e. scandinavian names that are anything+son/sen is patronymic). I did take DH's LN. I feel that our LO already gets DH LN and so I find the expectation that all children will also get his name as their MN too...ridiculous! I've tried to convince him to only carry on the tradition if it is a boy and at least for a girl I'd have a choice--but he hasn't budged.

Furthermore, I want to choose a middle name that is significant to my side of the family. Possibly maiden surname as MN for boy and a vintage name from my family tree for a girl. Another example is my dad's family has lived in the same small town (Juliet) for generations so I am considering that as a middle name in a girl. I know a second MN is fairly unusual here, but I want honor my heritage in the MN. The MNs wouldn't be short (6-8 for the ones from my family and the patronymic name would be 10 letters). Would it be huge a pain paperwork wise to give our LO(s) 2 MNs? Would it be worth doing 2 MNs as a compromise so we can honor both of our heritages? Would you hyphenate or just use a space if you use 2 MN? Anyone else face this dilema, what did you do? Thoughts?

 

sharonholck28

Two middle names doesn't seem like a big deal to me. I'm from Hawaii and it is normal to have very long middle names. Mine is the second longest in my family being 56 letters (9 names) from first to last. My fiancé also has a hyphenated first name, two middle names and a hyphenated last name. While we don't plan on giving out kid a crazy name like mine we will probably have at least two Middle names. One English and probably of family relevance and one Hawaiian name. I think your idea of maybe if it's a boy to go with his culture while if it's a girl to go with yours. Maybe you guys need to just think what the names would be and maybe it'll grow on you guys one way or another? I'd try combinations too.

celainev

I think two middle names is pretty normal. Maybe do one middle name picked by each parent?

mrsattema

TomekiaB said:

My DH is slavic and moved to the USA as a young adult his culture has a patronymic name tradition. So, DH's MN is Sergeyevich and DH's sister's MN is Sergeyevna (So, their dad is Sergey. So, by tradition EVERY child my DH has would be DH name + male/female suffix). My husband rarely cares about traditions and is REALLY attached to this tradition. My family is part scandinavian and we also have partonymic names but they became surnames when we assimilated (i.e. scandinavian names that are anything+son/sen is patronymic). I did take DH's LN. I feel that our LO already gets DH LN and so I find the expectation that all children will also get his name as their MN too...ridiculous! I've tried to convince him to only carry on the tradition if it is a boy and at least for a girl I'd have a choice--but he hasn't budged.

Furthermore, I want to choose a middle name that is significant to my side of the family. Possibly maiden surname as MN for boy and a vintage name from my family tree for a girl. Another example is my dad's family has lived in the same small town (Juliet) for generations so I am considering that as a middle name in a girl. I know a second MN is fairly unusual here, but I want honor my heritage in the MN. The MNs wouldn't be short (6-8 for the ones from my family and the patronymic name would be 10 letters). Would it be huge a pain paperwork wise to give our LO(s) 2 MNs? Would it be worth doing 2 MNs as a compromise so we can honor both of our heritages? Would you hyphenate or just use a space if you use 2 MN? Anyone else face this dilema, what did you do? Thoughts?

 

My oldest daughter has two middle names no hyphen. My reason, spelled these ways, mean the following ... Kiera-beautiful(person) [MN1]bella (beautiful) [MN2] Chae (life)

Kiera Bella Chae -beautiful (person) & beautiful life

ahendrix0904

I have 2 middle names, and I've never found it to be a pain because I don't really use them unless I'm filling out official paperwork. I don't know a lot of people who have 2, but I don't think it's unusual.

dec15mum

My brother has 2 middle names, I think they sounds pretty cool if they work together!

Court11152325

My husband has 2 middle names and it rarely has been issue, other than he and his dad share the same first name and in order to differentiate he has to be sure to use his middle names on background checks and what not. Often times there's room for one middle name and he uses his first.

Maybe you could lobby to get your choice to be first middle name and his to be second, that way they are both there, but the first gets used most frequently with initials and paperwork and what not?

fiorip

I don't think two middle names would be an issue, most people don't use them anyways and I think it's great to honor both family and tradition.
Our little one will be named after my father in law and my father and they are both so happy we are using their names is well worth it.

GenH83

I was a little nervous about using two middle names with my daughter who I'm 19 weeks along with now but we just decided that we both loved each name for a different reason and it wasn't really a big deal to use both. So, River Shannon Ruth it is! 

drewmw

We are planning on doing 2 middle names if we have a boy (David Ray...unsure of first name yet). One is from my husband's family, one is from mine.

TomekiaB

Thank you all, that makes me feel better that no one has had issues with 2 MNs! By the way lots of pretty middle names in this thread, thanks for sharing!

My plan will be to have the the first MN we choose followed by the traditional slavic MN 2nd. 

So using the original MN example the 2nd MN would always be Sergeyevich (boy) or Sergeyevna (girl) for any child of Sergey--whether Sergey has 1 child or 20 children, boy or girl (respectively). So, anyway with 2 MN and this tradition DH and I are only "choosing" one middle name, the 2nd was chosen by my inlaws when they named my husband (as long as we maintain the tradition).