Middle name is a must?

[Anonymous]

Bullying over names IME is something parents worry about but isn't really a thing.

I think it's fine to skip the middle name but you need to be consistent for any future children too. I do not have a MN but my siblings do and it did really bother me when I was a kid. IME kids do talk about middle names so I felt left out of those conversations and didn't like that everyone else had three initials.

I think it would have been less bothersome if the reason was just "we don't do middle names in our family/culture.". In my case, my parents just couldn't figure it out in the stressful time after I was born early and before I had to have surgery. They wanted me baptized before that but didn't have a name settled because my aunt had used the girl name my mom wanted a few weeks before I was born. In the end they went with a first name my grandma suggested. Grandma's name would have been the logical MN since my sister had the other grandma's but grandma #2 hates her name and banned it from consideration. So they just gave up on a middle name. My maiden name is now my middle name.

[Anonymous]

"don't you want a second name to sound more American?"

This is pretty close-minded. Indian-American here with an ethnic name, did the same for my kids (first and middle), and all of my Indian-American friends did as well. Happily this is a diverse area in terms of cultures and names, and what counts as "American" doesn't have to be narrow. Umm, VP Kamala Devi Harris!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ethnically Italian here. I don’t think it’s a must, but it’s a privilege. I wish I had a second name.

You can use a cosmopolitan(or “Italo-cosmopolitan”) name as the middle one.

Giovanni Rocco, Ludovico Ivan, Vincenzo Luca, etc.

OP here....All good options, but don't you want a second name to sound more American? Someone mentioned Asians, and yes I have noticed all my Asian friends gave their kids an American name as the first and an Asian(-ish) as the middle

Asians do it because Westerners often have a hard time pronouncing Asian names. That's really not as big of a problem for Italian names. I actually know a couple of Italian-Americans (Italian parents, kid born in the US) with the name Luca, for example, and no one has any problem with it. Any Italian name that has a close American/English analog, like Marco, will be easy. Americans are most likely to mispronounce sounds like "Ci" (so "Ciro" will get pronounced "SEAR-oh"). Our friend Francesco says people say his name right about half the time. On the other hand, my kid has an Alessandro in her class and the kids have no problem pronouncing that.

And kids around here don't really make fun of other kids' names. It's one benefit of being in a city with an international population -- people in DC are just used to names from all over the world.

[Anonymous]

My mother does not officially have a middle name. However, her first name is a two-parter (i.e. Mary Jane) and as time went on, people and businesses always put her second name (Jane) as her middle name. At some point my mom stopped caring and now I think my dad is the only person who calls her Mary Jane.

[Anonymous]

I've thought it strange rationale but I've heard of (LDS) families not giving daughters middle names "with faith that they would marry' and make their last names their middle names. Rationale is sexist and presumptive and why not have 2 middle names, but you may feel diff.

[Anonymous]

You don't need a middle name. It might cause some administrative hassles, where computer systems use all three initials, but I wouldn't think it's that big of a deal. If you want one, just choose whatever name you like. It doesn't have to be "American." "American kids have names from all over the world.

[Anonymous]

You definitely don't need a middle name.

Also bullying is not really a thing anymore. My kids are at a non-fancy (some would say sh*tty) public school and for the most part, it is just very out of vogue to be mean to someone for the sake of being mean. Certainly, kids have their issues but it's not "bullying".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ethnically Italian here. I don’t think it’s a must, but it’s a privilege. I wish I had a second name.

You can use a cosmopolitan(or “Italo-cosmopolitan”) name as the middle one.

Giovanni Rocco, Ludovico Ivan, Vincenzo Luca, etc.

OP here....All good options, but don't you want a second name to sound more American? Someone mentioned Asians, and yes I have noticed all my Asian friends gave their kids an American name as the first and an Asian(-ish) as the middle

Asians do it because Westerners often have a hard time pronouncing Asian names. That's really not as big of a problem for Italian names. I actually know a couple of Italian-Americans (Italian parents, kid born in the US) with the name Luca, for example, and no one has any problem with it. Any Italian name that has a close American/English analog, like Marco, will be easy. Americans are most likely to mispronounce sounds like "Ci" (so "Ciro" will get pronounced "SEAR-oh"). Our friend Francesco says people say his name right about half the time. On the other hand, my kid has an Alessandro in her class and the kids have no problem pronouncing that.

And kids around here don't really make fun of other kids' names. It's one benefit of being in a city with an international population -- people in DC are just used to names from all over the world.

OP here...I think we got traumatized by Trump presidency and an exposure to his intolerant base.