Surname used as a middle name

[gaffy]

As well as surnames of people in the news, names associated with events could be used. I heard of a lady whose middle name was Ladysmith (after the battle). She kept this very quiet as it betrayed the year she was born 

I've encountered a few 'Kitchener' middle names for boys born during or soon after WW1.

[Ruskie]

I have many examples of surnames as middle names in my family and families I have researched for others. In some cases the surnames are used as both a middle name as well as forenames in different families/generations.

Some are “accidental” finds rather than recognising the surnames as from an earlier generation.

I have one named after the father’s employer. One family gave the same surname as middle name to all of their nine (I think it was) children. (That was the maiden surname of the mother). Another family gave their children surnames as middle names which I didn’t recognise as family names - I stumbled upon a document written by the father about his family history which explained how each child came to be given these middle names. I recall one in particular who was named “in honor” of a woman who was “kind” to his wife. He always used the term “in honor”. They were a Scottish family.

I’ve found this quite common in the NE and Scotland, though I do have examples from all over.

[KGarrad]

I have 1 ancestor whose middle name was his grandmother's maiden name.

[GR2]

Sometimes middle names "appear" later in life. James Brown's son, called John after John Smith, his maternal grandfather, might appear in the parish register baptised as John Brown or on his birth certificate registered as John Brown. Later in life he might start to call himself John Smith Brown.

I have even come across a John with no middle name who went on to marry a lady with a middle name and then gave all his children middle names. Feeling left out, he awarded himself the fictitious middle name "Milton".

[BenRalph]

2 out of my 3 children have ancestral surnames as their middle name. One is now a given Christian name and the other amuses my 3 year old as it is what a lot of England is getting.

[SMJ]

I have a 3xGtGf living in Overton, Flintshire who suddenly at the age of 70 adds 'Stant' as his middle name for the 1861 Census only.

I have been unable to find who 'Stant' refers to or who they may be, but it is used as a surname in the area.

[Erato]

Surnames used as middle names are very common in the paternal side of my tree right up to the present day.  In my generation, I think I'm the only one who did not get a surname as a middle name.

[rosie17]

I have 1 ancestor whose middle name was his grandmother's maiden name.

I also have my Grandma's maiden name as my middle name along with other siblings 

Rosie

[Janelle]

Also, before middle names were fashionable, a surname as a middle name in a baptism of a base child might indicate who the father was.