The joy of middle names

[Kim in Qatar]

I have 3 siblings [ggggrandfather's siblings] who had the middle names of Hollowell,[eldest son] and then Aspley for the next son and daughter and then the last 2 have no middle names.

[Elizabeth Revel]

I was looking at a family where some of the children's middle names were the surnames of married sisters of the mother.

My guess was that these people may have been god parents and would have become the guardians in the event that it was necessary.

Beth

[stonechat]

Yes a while back, I was looking for parents of George Cocks.
There was also an inresolved issue of why so many members of the family had Bond as a middle name. Then I found a marriage of George Bowker Cock (no 's') to Mary Bond. I didn't believe it until Ancestry released another Census year and George called himself George Bowker Cocks on the Census.

And he , along with brothers added the 's' to the surname.


HOwever a warning.
Sometimes- particularly in USA - women after marriage use their maiden name as a middle name, so be careful (this has been seen in England too)

Bob

[GordonD]

Definitely useful in a lot of my cases as when following the Scottish naming pattern the children were given the surname of the maternal/paternal grandmother or the paternal grandfather that they were named after as a middle name.

However the middle name of a ggg grandfather , John Campbell McIhern (or other phonetic spellings) was rather annoying as he came to use this as a surname. Meant had his death as John Campbell and him on census returns but couldn't find death of wife or any of the children as he used the McIhern surname.

Gordon