Mother’s Last Name as Baby’s Second Middle Name

[Anonymous]

My kids have two middle names. It's fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been held up at the airport immigration and security lines more than once for someone in our party having one letter different from ticket and ID (usually the middle name vs abbreviation is the culprit). Such a pain just for “Liam” vs “L”. I’d avoid doing 2 middle names just because computers (and dmv people) do not know how to consistently handle them. I’ve heard the same for people with “NMN”. Life’s hard enough.

Such a pain.

The PITA part comes when different government forms, entities and personnel in put your info that may or may not fit in their software choices and then that has to match up exactly with another government form, entity and personnel.
If you’re White, you’ll be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids have two middle names. It's fine.

^ and my husband has arguably four middle names, though one is technically a title, and our last name has two words (think de/van/von/bin). His name has caused some issues because it doesn't fit on lots of forms, but the truth is that in most contexts, including most official contexts, your middle name doesn't actually matter. You can just use initials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been held up at the airport immigration and security lines more than once for someone in our party having one letter different from ticket and ID (usually the middle name vs abbreviation is the culprit). Such a pain just for “Liam” vs “L”. I’d avoid doing 2 middle names just because computers (and dmv people) do not know how to consistently handle them. I’ve heard the same for people with “NMN”. Life’s hard enough.

Such a pain.

Interesting. We’re a foreign service family and we have 8 passports for our family of 4 and dozens of other ID’s. Crazy things like smiling in an official photo have caused problems but having both parents last name never has.

[Anonymous]

My husband and I kept our last names and our son took my last name. DH didn’t really want our son to have his last name at all (his family is pretty awful, and it’s not a nice name) but at the last minute, i persuaded him to add it to the birth certificate as a 2nd middle. So his name is First Middle DadName MomName. It has caused no issues with travel and passports, but he’s not old enough for the DMV yet so I can’t attest to that. Only very minor hassle so far is that the whole “Middle name” is 15 characters including the space between 1st and 2nd middle, but his school system’s student information system has a 14 character limit for that field. So it cuts off the last letter of his dad’s last name, which makes it even odder. But most teachers don’t use that field for anything, so NBD.

Son likes that both of our names are in his name. And he’s never batted an eye that he has my last name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I kept my last name after marrying DH. We’re expecting our first baby now. I’m considering having my last name (one syllable) as a second middle name for the baby. That way, my last name would be part of baby’s official name without dealing with having a hyphenated last name (I don’t want to go the hyphenated last name route). I’d like to keep the first middle name short with a one syllable name as well. Thoughts? Is it a hassle having two middle names?

We did this for both of our kids. It’s truly no big deal. Never been a hassle.

My siblings and I also all have 2 middle names with our mothers last name as the 2nd middle too so I guess we’re carrying on a family tradition at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s annoying to have four names. There are several forms for which you have to choose which name to drop. I would especially avoid this for a girl, as it makes monograms and initial items tricky.

This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Planning your life around the tackiest of items is just sad.

Monograms??!!

Really?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been held up at the airport immigration and security lines more than once for someone in our party having one letter different from ticket and ID (usually the middle name vs abbreviation is the culprit). Such a pain just for “Liam” vs “L”. I’d avoid doing 2 middle names just because computers (and dmv people) do not know how to consistently handle them. I’ve heard the same for people with “NMN”. Life’s hard enough.

Such a pain.

The PITA part comes when different government forms, entities and personnel in put your info that may or may not fit in their software choices and then that has to match up exactly with another government form, entity and personnel.
If you’re White, you’ll be fine.

It’s a problem if there’s a discrepancy between two official government forms or if either differs from what’s printed on your airline ticket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been held up at the airport immigration and security lines more than once for someone in our party having one letter different from ticket and ID (usually the middle name vs abbreviation is the culprit). Such a pain just for “Liam” vs “L”. I’d avoid doing 2 middle names just because computers (and dmv people) do not know how to consistently handle them. I’ve heard the same for people with “NMN”. Life’s hard enough.

Such a pain.

The PITA part comes when different government forms, entities and personnel in put your info that may or may not fit in their software choices and then that has to match up exactly with another government form, entity and personnel.
If you’re White, you’ll be fine.

It’s a problem if there’s a discrepancy between two official government forms or if either differs from what’s printed on your airline ticket.

So just make sure this doesn’t happen. It’s not hard to make sure you always write your name the same way to make it match when applying for SS card, drivers license, passport, etc.

-I have 2 middle names as do both my kids. We travel a lot. Never had an issue. When buying plane tickets or whatever, I just put our names the exact same way they appear on our passports/IDs.

[Anonymous]

My question is, why?

What's your goal?

If your goal is to preserve the name and make it a part of your child's name, then you should make it their middle name (with just one middle name) or hyphenate.

Unless you are a royal, nobody will ever know or use your kid's second middle name. It will only be needed for official documents--and even then, the forms aren't really built for an additional name.

I am a woman with a hyphenated last name, and our kids have hyphenated last names. Since they are boys, our double-barreled last name will carry on for at least another generation.

My siblings and several friends gave their children the mother's maiden name as the one middle name. That's another way to carry on a name.

I also know several women who went the HRC/RBG route and use their full name professionally (no hyphens; think: Jane Smith Jones). Your kid could do that, and then the name lives on in a meaningful way.

[Anonymous]

both of my sons have two middle names, there hasn't been any issues so far (they are 8 and 11)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just do one middle name

+1

No one wants FOUR names. No one. It looks and sounds dumb.

The ignorance of Americans is astounding.

Much of the world uses 4 names.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been held up at the airport immigration and security lines more than once for someone in our party having one letter different from ticket and ID (usually the middle name vs abbreviation is the culprit). Such a pain just for “Liam” vs “L”. I’d avoid doing 2 middle names just because computers (and dmv people) do not know how to consistently handle them. I’ve heard the same for people with “NMN”. Life’s hard enough.

Such a pain.

The PITA part comes when different government forms, entities and personnel in put your info that may or may not fit in their software choices and then that has to match up exactly with another government form, entity and personnel.
If you’re White, you’ll be fine.

It’s a problem if there’s a discrepancy between two official government forms or if either differs from what’s printed on your airline ticket.

Come on. Get real. The real problem is MONOGRAMS! How will your daughter go through life without tacky monogrammed towels?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s annoying to have four names. There are several forms for which you have to choose which name to drop. I would especially avoid this for a girl, as it makes monograms and initial items tricky.

This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Planning your life around the tackiest of items is just sad.

Monograms??!!

Really?!

I totally agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I gave my DC my last name as their middle and am glad, but sometimes wish I’d chosen another middle name as well. So I like your solution, OP. I don’t think it’s a big deal to have two middle names. The thing about names is that most of the time you can go by whatever you want, and then when you have to provide your legal name on paperwork, middle names are optional 90% of the time. And when they are not optional, often they are space limited, so you can just put initials (or get mail with a partial middle name on them).

Point is, it really doesn’t matter and you should give your kid the name you want.

OP here. Thanks! This is why I was thinking of doing two middle names. I wanted the first middle name to be a traditional given name. My last name sounds like a last name and wouldn’t ever be used as a first name. Plus, I would like the first middle name to be my mom’s name.

I realize the second middle name would hardly ever be used but would still mean a lot to me if my last name was part of DC’s name in some way. I guess I’m more concerned about any potential hassle for DC going forward. Not sure if the folks who fall in the “just do one middle name” camp have any justification other than they don’t like it for me to weigh the pros and cons.

I was wondering which middle name would be used when only using one. Like Full name: Elizabeth Anne Smith Brown Would you fill out a form as Elizabeth Anne Brown or Elizabeth Smith Brown?