People preferring their middle name, and then changing their middle name to be

[gracie23]

My dad (deceased) was named Emmet Matthew after a son of his grandmom who died young. He always hated his name and when he joined the Navy, he had it changed to Matthew Emmet. For the rest of her life, his grandmom gave him such grief for changing his name During my FH research I could not locate any records for this deceased son "Emmet" until I came across cemetery records, went to the the cemetery and found out this sons name was Francis Emmet! Oh what my dad endured all for naught! I hope he's laughing in heaven
Deb

[eadaoin]

My Grandad was John Richard, but known all his life as Dick. His daughter (my Aunt) was Doris Margaret but known all her life as Margaret. Like an earlier posting, it wasn't until her funeral that I knew that her real name was Doris.

but a second name is a real name!
At least it is if you're either christened or registered with it!

maybe it's just as well I have only one given name

eadaoin

[jaybelnz]

I don't think that the people always necessarily themselves choose to use their second name - it's probably been instigated by their parents.  I think maybe for reasons of the same names being used across families, as in naming patterns etc.  or just naming after a chosen person..

Or, I dunno, lots of reasons I suppose, although my friend has a sister everyone calls Paula, and her registered  name is Olga!  Olga was a name further back in her father's family, and "had" to be used.   But her Mum didn't like it, had wanted her named Paula - so she was Paula!!

I suppose too that most births would have been registered by the "man" of the house, so mother probably didn't get much of a "legal"say anyway!!

So there's always more than one way to "skin a cat" 

Jeanne

[EDO]

G'day

For over 7 decades I have been known by my middle name.
My sister was also called by her middle name.
Our elder brother was only known by his first name.

My father b1898 and his brother were known by their 3rd name.
In fact my father was better known by his nick-name.

The practice does not go back further than their being.

In my life the only complications have been with officialdom.
I have learned to use my first name for official communications etc.

My first real problem occurred in my first week at school.
I did not answer to my first name at roll-call hence,
I was not marked as being present.

Regards

EDO

[Jean McGurn]

Like EDO I have always been called by my middle name. I use both names on official documents and only twice in my long life have I ever been called by my first name.

The first time was at infants school but mother removed me to another where they used my second name and the other time was recently when doing jury duty.

That was quite perculiar as the rest of the jurors called me by my first name (because this was always used when the usher called out the list) and it took two or three days to get used to it.

As for mother not liking my first name - she had adopted me but kept both my birth names even though she did not like the first name my birth mother had given me

At work when any lists go out for people to attend training or they send me my P60 each year the put my first name with my second name in brackets  presumably so everyone knows it me and not some new person on staff.

Jean

[bitty_matriarch]

My husband has 3 Christian names and is known by the 3rd one; I have 2 Christian names and am known by the 2nd one.

I was going to have just one name, the story goes, but when Dad registered my birth, he added his grandmother's name to it as a first name.

Have never used my first name, and it causes all sorts of problems   

[Just Kia]

I've switched my first and middle names, added a name to the beginning and kept my maiden name as a middle name after getting married.
My dad's brother is known by his middle name as is hubby's uncle and once I start going back along the lines there are numerous people who have switched their first and middles names.

[DeeBoneham]

My parents deliberately chose to give us none family with no middle names to break that... 

[andrewalston]

Having dug around the records about a branch of the family from Nova Scotia, I found that swapping given names around was common there. "George R Smith" in one census is likely to show as "Robert G Smith" in the next, or have the middle names omitted completely. This applied to all official records. People just seemed to use what was their favourite name at the time.

I found this exasperating until I realised that it was normal in the province.