Middle Names: The secret middles of famous names

I really like Earnest/Ernest.
Some of these names are definitely interesting.

I bet most of these are family surnames, which I think it’s a lovely tradition!

I too love family surnames in the middle! I keep hoping if Josie ever goes to Hollywood, she uses her middles: Rosamel Anne. I adore her whole name but there are moments when I regret not naming her Rosamel flat out! My boys have family surnames in the middle: Coe & Nash. Love, love, love those surnames in the middle!!

I’m so glad Hugh Grant has John before Mungo.
Can you imagine a baby named Hugh Mungo? Humongo?

Best article in awhile! Super interesting

This is a GREAT article! It gave me zero ideas for future babies, but interesting entertainment.

Cool article. In my family too, many middle names are family names. Both my grandfathers –Thomas Irving Brewster and George Wadsworth Owen — have family names for middles, and you can find the old New England names of Knight, Dow, Cushman, Merrill, Lyman, and Cushing among our family names. My mother’s middle is Motzveldt, from the Norwegian branch of the family, and both my sisters gave family names to their children — Cassandra Hammett and Matthew Brewster.

Mungo is awesome. I went to school with a girl named Delight Pink (she named her sons Michael, David, and Christopher, so we know what she thought about her name). Joan of Arc may be strange in English, but in Catholic European countries it’s not that unusual to see names such as Jeanne d’Arc, Gianbattista, Rosario, Concepcion, etc.

Some of these names are wonderful! I LOVE the Fiennes brothers’ names! except I can’t stomach the Judas association with Iscariot, no matter how cool-sounding the name. Does anyone know why Joseph got it? I’d like to find out it has other associations.
We have a friend named William who’s in his fifties and has been “Bill” all his life. He is a very sweet man and, I’m sure, has no historical sympathy with the Kaiser, but a year or two ago he apparently got tired of being a “Bill” and insisted, with the help of a nameplate, that all friends and acquaintances henceforth call him “Willhelm.” We have accordingly adjusted.