Why do some people...?

[Vance Mead]

In Wales and the West Midlands, I've seen names such as Morgan Thomas Lloyd in the 17th century, a patronymic with the 'ap' left out.

[Siely]

My tree has quite a few very poor lines including workhouses. I've found "sensitivity" or being "touchy' is  often linked to these issues especially when they discover their true identity very late in life or in some cases never at all.  So names can be dropped or changed because of deep anger, not least when one is already three generations on from the key facts.

[JAKnighton]

In the FamilySearch family tree, nine times out of ten when I see a person born pre-1700 with a middle name I check the sources and it's actually two people (or more) who have been conflated. It's usually an attempt by someone to force their ancestor into another family (usually one that has a royal connection).

So for example, someone will have a John Smith born c.1695 and they can't find a christening for him, so they simply decide he is the same as Thomas Smith christened 1694 in a nearby county and they resolve the discrepancy in names by turning both men into 'John Thomas Smith'.

[Ruskie]

Yes Andrew that is a possibility. I have seen trees where name frequency is a problem and it is often solved by adding a number to the name.

I have been tempted to ask why the extra name, but I have found that some people can be very touchy about their trees 

Adding the number to the name is often an American thing, in more recent generations at least.

I have no proof nor am I sure of time lines, and it is likely much later than what you are interested in, but I recall reading that using of middle names was something that the wealthy did.

Have you looked at siblings of your person of interest in case middle names were a family tradition of sorts?

[rosie99]

I have one instance where they have decided that my ag lab is a Doctor and another couple where they have become Sir and Lady and plenty of trees that have copied it.  There is nothing to back up this information but plenty that states they are ag labs. 

[Siely]

When I first tried Ancestry I just kept clicking on the suggested ancestor box and eventually ended up with Mary Tudor. (?) . Ridiculous.

[Andrew Tarr]

I have no proof nor am I sure of time lines, and it is likely much later than what you are interested in, but I recall reading that using of middle names was something that the wealthy did.

My impression is that it became a C19 fashion to carry forward surnames which were otherwise lost after marriage.  My g-g-grandfather John Young (b.1809, m.1827) had 8 or 9 children, and his use of this habit enabled me to identify some events which would otherwise have been missed because of (presumably) mishearings by recorders - e.g. Pearson instead of Piercy, which may have arisen from an unfamiliar non-local accent.

[jnomad]

If we’re allowed to talk about C19, I don’t think anyone has mentioned the Irish custom of naming some sons after their maternal grandfathers, with surname as middle name. In my family, not wealthy, it was first son. So he had a middle name. Other sons had no middle name. But I don’t know about generations before the 1840s.

[coombs]

My ancestor William Thomas Coombs' dad died when William was 3 in 1831. His name was George Coombs, a coachman, and William's older brother was Matthew George Coombs, a printer. When William married in 1856 he said his dad was Matthew George Coombs, but the right occupation of coachman. Never have I come across George Coombs himself being called Matthew George Coombs. However George himself was the son of Matthew Coombs, so must have named his eldest son Matthew George Coombs after his father and himself. I think William must have got confused, as he lost his dad when he was 3 so never really knew him, and his older brother was called Matthew George Coombs, not his dad.