Middle name
In various cultures, a middle name is a portion of a personal name that is written between the person's first given name and their surname.[1][2] A middle name is often abbreviated and is then called middle initial or just initial.
For the first part of a double or multiple family name, see Compound surname.A person may be given a middle name regardless of whether it is necessary to distinguish them from other people with the same given name and surname. In cultures where a given name is expected to precede the surname, additional names are likely to be placed after the given name and before the surname,[3] and thus called middle names.
Usage in various languages[edit]
English[edit]
Among royalty and aristocracy, middle names have been used since the late 17th century (and possibly earlier), as exemplified in the name of the Stuart pretender James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766). Despite their relatively long existence in North America, the term middle name was not recorded until 1835, in the periodical Harvardiana.
Not every name that stands as the middle word in a three-name string is a middle name. Major classes of this theme are as follows: