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Mini: Middle Names · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to Why we do what we do many I am
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your host Abraham, and I'm Shane, coming to you from
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: hotel rooms this time. But you don't really need to
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: know that. We are a psychology podcast. We talk about
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the things that humans and non human animals do. We
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: release these short form episodes in which we take a
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  Speaker 1: little trip down the lane of curiosity into some topic,
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  Speaker 1: and then we wander back and then we're done with
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: that trip, and that's and we need to take some
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  Speaker 1: pictures along the way, maybe compose a nice haiku, and
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: then we get out of there and you go about
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  Speaker 1: your day.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, sometimes we like to talk about things.
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  Speaker 2: You know. It's funny as we were talking about this
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  Speaker 2: specific topic, I realized that I think we just like
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: talking about naming things sometimes.
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  Speaker 1: Right, I was just thinking that, Like, I'm like, in
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  Speaker 1: just the last two weeks, I think we've talked about
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  Speaker 1: naming at least twice.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and here we are. We're here talking about middle names,
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  Speaker 2: names that are sometimes names that people go by, and
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  Speaker 2: sometimes people don't go by, and sometimes people don't even
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  Speaker 2: have man.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, these are all facts almost inside jokes, but those
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  Speaker 1: are things. So, yeah, middle names, there are things there.
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  Speaker 1: They tell us when we're being admonished or disapproved of,
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  Speaker 1: such as Shane Tarannosaurus spiker at.
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  Speaker 2: That's what the tea stands for. I never tell anybody,
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  Speaker 2: I just share.
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  Speaker 1: I just gave it away Shane T. Spiker tea for Tarannasaurus.
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  Speaker 2: Don't don't open a credit card of my name. Please.
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  Speaker 2: First of all, sometimes we know we're being admonished, we
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  Speaker 2: know we're being disapproved of when somebody says our full name,
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  Speaker 2: or it can be said with pride to increase someone's uniqueness,
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  Speaker 2: which is also why I go by Tyrannosaurus in my
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  Speaker 2: day to day work.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, or you may not have a middle name at all,
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  Speaker 1: But so that's that's sort of the question. That's the
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  Speaker 1: inquiry we are exploring today is middle names, Like, what's
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  Speaker 1: up with those? Why do we have middle names? Where
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  Speaker 1: did this cultural practice come from? How widespread is this
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  Speaker 1: cultural practice? We'll answer those questions and more, hopefully, or
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: at least we will talk about some stuff for a
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: little while and then we'll be done. But we'll hopefully
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  Speaker 1: get to some things about middle names. So let's impact this.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So it probably would have been sufficient at some
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  Speaker 2: point in time to have a single moniker when small
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  Speaker 2: tribes of people had limited proto languages like Smurg and Glarp.
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  Speaker 2: That was probably enough to distinguish you from anyone else
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  Speaker 2: in the group, because there was only one Smurg and
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  Speaker 2: only one Glarp. Also, what great names.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you? I just I just came up with them,
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  Speaker 1: you know, a name creator, I guess. But eventually we
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: all started to have not just one name, but also
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: a second name, one that designated our relation to probably
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  Speaker 1: a group of people, probably our families. And at some
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  Speaker 1: point we even started adding a third name, although not
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  Speaker 1: at the end but instead in the middle.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would imagine there's probably some folks that
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  Speaker 2: have four or five, six or seven names even more
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  Speaker 2: there more, we're only talking about that third name right now.
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  Speaker 2: So according to Karen Stern, who only gave their first
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  Speaker 2: and last name, they are a story and at Brooklyn
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: College of the City University of New York, there is
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  Speaker 2: evidence that ancient Romans used a personal name, a family name,
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  Speaker 2: and a cognomen.
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  Speaker 1: I think that's a cognomen. Is how I read that?
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  Speaker 2: In a cognomen, which was an attribute or later a
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  Speaker 2: name of your family.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, some some sort of designation of that, and so
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  Speaker 1: they were kind of like the names had different functions
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  Speaker 1: and how they sort of worked and what they did,
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  Speaker 1: but that they were assigned to a person and that
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  Speaker 1: did help identify that person. Now, this didn't spread very
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  Speaker 1: far initially, however, in medieval Europe. Side note, we should
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  Speaker 1: talk about the word midi sometime because it's it's interesting
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  Speaker 1: and it's weird, and I think a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: are unclear why we would call something medieval and it's
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  Speaker 1: not spelled like mid and then evil, which means there's
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  Speaker 1: some other lexical origin to that that would be interesting
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  Speaker 1: to explore. Right Anyway, where in medieval Europe, probably the
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  Speaker 1: twelve hundred's specifically, it seems like credit can go to
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  Speaker 1: Italy and maybe Germany. So the Catholic Church here started
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  Speaker 1: encouraging adding the name of a saint between the given name,
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  Speaker 1: like the first personal name and then the family's surtin name,
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  Speaker 1: and that adding that name would meant would mean that
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  Speaker 1: that saint then protected that child.
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  Speaker 2: So is anybody surprised that religion plays a role in
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  Speaker 2: this thing that we're dealing with? You know, the Catholic
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  Speaker 2: Church specifically the Catholic Church, like they always have a
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  Speaker 2: hand in something, so especially ads. Okay, so we're talking
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  Speaker 2: about middle names, and we're talking about not the Catholic
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  Speaker 2: Church by itself, but how the Catholic Church maybe maybe
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  Speaker 2: played a role in the development of the idea of
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  Speaker 2: middle names by adding saints to children's names as protectors.
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  Speaker 1: So the name of saints, yeah, not not just put
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  Speaker 1: in like the physical body of a saint, but the
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  Speaker 1: name yah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, listen, there are churches that have physical
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  Speaker 2: bodies of saint somewhere, like they've got like all kinds
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  Speaker 2: of stuff. Well, there's artifacts all over the place, So
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  Speaker 2: that's a that's a different thing. Like if you walk
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  Speaker 2: into your church and there's a saint skull in your church,
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  Speaker 2: that you should be you should have questions, I think, like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, is that person a saint? Why there's skull?
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  Speaker 2: Why not another part of their body? Well we could
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  Speaker 2: talk about that another day too. That's a different conversation.
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  Speaker 2: Why do we keep the bones of saints? Now? Of course,
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  Speaker 2: such a boon of privilege could only be reserved for
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  Speaker 2: the elite at the time, and probably pat of the
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  Speaker 2: price of the birth certificate. Quite generously. So initially the
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  Speaker 2: convention of adding middle saintly names was very popular among
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  Speaker 2: the most elite and aristocratic. In fact, it was even
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  Speaker 2: illegal to give a child a middle name unless the
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  Speaker 2: name meant some threshold of nobility in some places.
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  Speaker 1: So the practice of adding middle names, particularly among the
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  Speaker 1: wealthiest and most powerful, as we've established, did spread to
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  Speaker 1: many places around the world for a bit. And as
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  Speaker 1: it spread it took on different traditions. I mean, if
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  Speaker 1: it started in a place that was primarily of Christian
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  Speaker 1: origin and honored the saints of that religion specifically, it
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  Speaker 1: would kind of make sense that as it moved around
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  Speaker 1: the globe, it would be more culturally relevant to the
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  Speaker 1: place where it ended up, and then spread again later,
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  Speaker 1: and so it later came to mean it took on
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  Speaker 1: different traditions, from other religious references to specific cultural practices
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  Speaker 1: to family names. There were all kinds of reasons and
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  Speaker 1: ways that it was used as it sort of became
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  Speaker 1: more widespread.
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  Speaker 2: So even when the Mayflower arrived in what would later
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  Speaker 2: become the United States, not one person on the Mayflower
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  Speaker 2: had a middle name, according to ancestry dot Com. So
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  Speaker 2: I think that's actually pretty fascinating so it was like
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  Speaker 2: a bunch of like John Joseph's.
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  Speaker 1: That's probably was pretty much everyone's name, yeah, or Joanna
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  Speaker 1: Joseph and that.
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  Speaker 2: Was it, or Johanna Joseph, Mary Joseph.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And to that point. Actually, middle names were very
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  Speaker 1: uncommon in early America. In fact, an interesting number I
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  Speaker 1: found is that only three of the first seventeen US
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  Speaker 1: presidents had a middle name, which never even occurred to me.
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  Speaker 1: And then we also think of some other famous examples
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  Speaker 1: of people, like it was like Lewis Merriweather, I think
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  Speaker 1: the explorer you know we're talking about, Yeah, only had
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  Speaker 1: only had two names. So like it was very common
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  Speaker 1: to only have two names. Only five percent of Americans
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  Speaker 1: had a middle name during the time of the Revolutionary
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  Speaker 1: War was another number that I found here.
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  Speaker 2: Isn't it a while to think that, like Lewis and
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  Speaker 2: Clark are known by singular names but only had two names.
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  Speaker 1: That's true, I know their names together, I mean more
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  Speaker 1: than their names apart. Yeah, but also yeah, just their's
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  Speaker 1: single names. So again, like where there were middle names,
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  Speaker 1: it was commonly among the upper classes. I mean maybe
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  Speaker 1: not exclusively, but like you're probably more likely to find
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  Speaker 1: it there and it was actually it did occur to
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  Speaker 1: me as I was writing notes for this, as we
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  Speaker 1: were talking about this, that like there's I mean, we
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  Speaker 1: already mentioned this, and I think this is getting to
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  Speaker 1: the point of, like the middle name just adds another
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  Speaker 1: layer of identity that has you stand out from a group. Sure,
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  Speaker 1: like there are gonna be a lot more people who
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  Speaker 1: have your first name, and if that was the only name,
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  Speaker 1: that you had to be very difficult to articulate the difference.
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  Speaker 1: Then there's a smaller group of people between that have
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  Speaker 1: both your first and your last name than have just
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  Speaker 1: your first name or just your last name, right, And
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  Speaker 1: then there's a smaller group still that has the exact
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  Speaker 1: combination of your first, middle and last name. And I'm
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  Speaker 1: sure someone's done the math to like see how unique
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  Speaker 1: that makes you, like, but I would I would guess
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  Speaker 1: mathematically vary like names already have a lot of variability
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  Speaker 1: in them, so I would guess that that narrows it
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  Speaker 1: down quite a bit to get down to just a first, middle,
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  Speaker 1: and last name. But there's this extra level of like
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  Speaker 1: notoriety that you can have if it's if your name
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  Speaker 1: is so recognized that that's the only name that you're
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  Speaker 1: ever called that. That is like transcends the like whole
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  Speaker 1: naming convention thing, which is kind of fun.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little bit fun. I so I discovered
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  Speaker 2: that there is another person out there that does have
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  Speaker 2: my full.
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  Speaker 1: Name Shane Trannosaur Spiker I.
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  Speaker 2: Know, and and when I look them up, they just
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: have instead of having a LinkedIn profile and presentations, they
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: have mugshots. So that's really cool. I have to explain
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: to people that I do not have a record when
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: I meet people sometimes.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: See, you should have registered before you came here.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The worst part is there also in Florida, so
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: that makes that makes it a little bit wow. Yeah
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  Speaker 2: a world. They're like an hour and a half away
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  Speaker 2: from me, so it's a it's like a whole thing.
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  Speaker 2: So anyway, many German immigrants came to the United States
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  Speaker 2: and brought large portions of middle names with them, so
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  Speaker 2: in addition, Americans began rapidly adopting the practice of using
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: middle names until nearly every American was given a middle
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  Speaker 2: name at birth by the early nineteen hundreds. The timeline
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  Speaker 2: on that by the early nineteen hundreds is when that
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: was becoming more of a common practice. Not at the
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: start of America. No, this was early nineteen hundreds.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like honestly, like the first half of the eighteen hundreds,
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  Speaker 1: not that many people had middle names. And by the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: time you get to the last half and into the
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, almost everybody has middle names. So this practice
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: is like barely over a century old, not in total,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: not like from where it started, but from where it
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: became commonplace, so common that like you and I have
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: middle names, that that practice is within one hundred and
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: fifty years, right, that's so recent in human history it's laughable.
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  Speaker 1: That's like two I mean, that's like three generations basically,
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  Speaker 1: like full generations of people.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Obviously they talk about generations as like years of twenty,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: but I mean as far as like whole lifetimes and
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  Speaker 1: like lineages go, Like, yeah, that's like three generations.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, like our great our great grandparents are. It's it's
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  Speaker 2: more likely. It's very likely that they didn't have last
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  Speaker 2: names or first names or middle names, is what I
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: should say. Middle names is what I meant.
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  Speaker 1: They mostly had first and last names.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but yes, listen, my great grandfather was Glurp, so.
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  Speaker 1: Was friends with my best friends with my great grandfather Smurg.
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  Speaker 2: Beautiful. This was destiny.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: It's right, could not have been better predicted. I were
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: actually almost done with this. I think a couple of
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  Speaker 1: things to know. Many countries around the world still only
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: use two names, and there are some countries that use
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: more than three, Like, there are countries with many more
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: than than two names out there. But the US is
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: more or less unique. And how common it is to
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: have a middle name, and with as much of an
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: irreverent bunch as we have turned out to be. We
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: use our middle names to honor all kinds of things.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: We might use our middle names to honor our grandparents,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: to honor family traditions or like lineages or something. We
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: might also use our middle names to honor celebrities. They
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: might just be random letters. We might honor fictional characters.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: We might do it just to sound cool. We're like,
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  Speaker 1: I like the way that name rolls off the tongue,
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  Speaker 1: and so that's just a thing that is. Those are
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: the reasons why we might do it in the United States.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: There's others, but those are some.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my father has two middle names. Oh, and he
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: has two middle names because his dad had two middle names.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: But his dad had two middle names because he was
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: adopted by the Spikers, so instead of taking away his
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: last name, they just moved that to his middle names.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: So he has two middle names, and my middle name
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: is I'm named after my dad. Oh, my brother and
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: I both have the same middle names, so both of
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: us are Tyrannosaurus Jesse Teransaurus Spiker shapes a Spiker.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: After the father, Tranda Saurres Spiker.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: After my dad, Rannosaurus Richard Spiker Junior.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, very very good and you know, fun, sort of fun.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Not as fun of a story as that, but I'm
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: glad that you shared. But I actually found out like
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: my mom was not assign a middle name at birth,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: with the understanding that her maiden name would become her
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: middle name once she was married and would take her
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: husband's last name. Interesting, so yeah, kind of yeah, it's interesting,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: interesting thing. But I me and all my siblings have
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: middle names because we're all just people in the eyes
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: of God.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, there is a Saint Thomas out there, so
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: here here, I am, you're giving away the secret. There
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: is a Saint Trannosaurus out there, you know, all right?
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Any other stories about middle names you want to share? Anything?
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Do your kids have middle names.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: My kids have middle names. My daughter's middle name is
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: after her mother's middle name, and that was the name
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: that was passed down on her mom's side. My son's
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: middle name was, yeah, theresaurus, so it's kind.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Of crazy, Okay, got stereosaurus.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, actually my son's middle name is bear bear
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: b e a R so b a e r, so
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: it's spelled b a r because I thought it sounded cool.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: That's no family ties. My family's German, so it's the
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: German spelling, which in in b A b a e R.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Bear in German is the German word for bear, So
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: it's just Germ for beer. That would be that would
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: be that would be so great. But yeah, it's his name.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: His middle name is bear and uh so and and
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: we just thought it sounded cool.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't really think that was the German name for me,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: but it was reminded me of those old commercials like Foster's.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: That's Australian for b and so that was my very
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: offensive Australian accent. I'm sorry, Australia. I didn't mean it.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: They're fine, but that was why where my mind went
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: when you said that. Anyway, we have this minis. I
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: think it's expiration point, so that was fun. If you
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: would like to tell us your middle name, we would
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: definitely love to hear from you. Please feel free to
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: share it with us. You can reach us directly by
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: emailing us at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com, and maybe
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: we'll share a bunch of fun middle names that we
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: get if you guys want to send them in. And
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: you can also comments, like if you just listen to
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: an episode where they allows comments, feel free to leave
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a comment and if we see those, then we'll try
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: and include that in a list that maybe we'll aggregate
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: over the next couple weeks or so.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, you can reach us on the social media platforms.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: support us, you can join us on Patreon. If you do,
• 15:43
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• 15:45
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• 15:55
  Speaker 1: a friend. Thank you so much to my team of
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: people for helping me make this happen. Thank you all
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: for listening. Is there anything else that I forgot that
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: you would like to add since I've been speaking for
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: so long?
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Nothing today?
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, very good, Well, thank you all for listening. This
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: is Abraham and this is Shane. Why We Do What
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: We Do Mini is out. Bye.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: we hope you have an awesome day