I reccommend the practice of giving children the maiden name of their mother

[Marmalady]

One branch of my family have regularly used the name Beverley as a middle name and the names "Baron Beverley" for their sons.

The Barons married into the family in 1752, the Beverleys in 1803

There is also an instance of the name "Sergeantson" as a middle name - they married into the family in 1746

Another branch has at least 7 generations of "Francis Drake Waldron Wheatons"

certainly makes it very simple to spot "one of ours"

[LindaJ1959]

My maiden name is Francis, and my son has it as his middle name. So far I haven't come across this practice in my family tree, though.

Linda

[kitching]

Hi

One of my ancestors  was given the Fergus O Conner Sykes it was some time before i found out he was named after Fergus O Conner the Chartists.

Val

[HeatherLynne]

Ten of the males in my Edden family have 'Rose' as their middle name over four generations!  I imagine I'll find a wedding of a Mr Edden and Miss Rose at some point but so far they're eluding me.

The majority of these men were plasterers by trade so I did wonder whether the Rose reference had something to do with plaster ceiling roses rather than a female's maiden name.  Unfortunately in this case Hugh Wallis's middle names index doesn't work as Rose is also a female first name.  (link for those who don't know the site I'm talking about  http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/  ).

Flight is a middle name that crops up several times in my Rassell ancestors and it took quite a while to find out where that came from.  A search at Hampshire Record Office for Rassell uncovered two bastardy bonds, one of which named the mother as Mary Flight 

Heather

[Jeuel]

I've not found much of this in my family, but I do have a 2nd gt grandfather called Emmets Matthews, named after his grandmother Anne Emmets Matthews.  He didn't name any of his sons Emmets, but all of them had sons who had this as a first or 2nd name which made it easier to sort which Matthews was which. 

Incidentally one of the sons had a son with middle initial E. which I assumed was Emmets - not so.  It was Elsbury, after his mother.  Except that in her Wiltshire baptism she is named Aylesbury!  So you can't always tell!

[Jeuel]

Ex had a grandfather named Edward Mandry Evans.  No idea where the Mandry came from, but I was chuffed to find Edward's death notice in a Welsh surname book in the old Family Records Centre, as an example of a variant of Mainwaring.

Much later, I discovered that Edward's gt x 2 grandmother's maiden name was Mandery.  But no one else in the family seems to have been named after her.

[Rishile]

I have quite a few occurances of this in my tree.

One name that frequently crops up as a middle name and even a given name is 'Thompson' but I have no idea where it came from originally.  It certainly helps with the research when it does happen.

It sounds like a good idea - just need to tell all our rellies to change their names 

Rishile

[Johnoz]

I also think it's a good idea, but too late for me now, with 40+ year old children. In my tree, my only ancestor with this practice was my late father, Alexander Meffan Gourlay. Meffan, being his mother's maiden name.
Johnoz

[suec45]

I have my Grandmothers maiden name as my middle name which is Wightman My mother had her mothers & grand mothers Cassles & Wightman. Most of my aunts & uncles have also have maiden names going back at least 3 generations
When I started doing my tree I knew all the names just wasn't sure where they came in to the family it was  made much easier to search Even today when we talk of a female member of the family we still use their maiden name like my G-gran she is always known as Janet Kerr although her married name was Fraser.