What's with the middle initial?

[_candygal]

To just keep relatives straight...Joe Blow..Joe B. Blow...Joe B. Blow Jr. etc.

[_Maksutov]

If the Church had adopted hyphenated family names, then surely there would be great prestige in being named Symmachus Kimball-Smith, Quasimodo Taylor-Woodruff, or Moksha Alger-Young.

If you were into Mormon politics, perhaps Daniel Bcspace-Droopy would carry great weight.

My tongue is hardening at the very thought.

[_Fence Sitter]

Maybe this isn't relevant, but I have noticed it is much easier to get people's attention with the middle finger than it is with a middle initial.

[_Lemmie]

Huh. Well this explains why I don't have a middle name OR middle initial, unlike every single one of my lds-born brothers, uncles, male cousins, grandfathers, grand-uncles, great-grandfathers, etc etc etc..

Long Live the Patriarchy.

Lemm I. E.

[_Maksutov]

Huh. Well this explains why I don't have a middle name OR middle initial, unlike every single one of my lds-born brothers, uncles, male cousins, grandfathers, grand-uncles, great-grandfathers, etc etc etc..

Long Live the Patriarchy.

Lemm I. E.

Hey, you can give yourself a real middle name. What would it be?

[_Maksutov]

To just keep relatives straight...Joe Blow..Joe B. Blow...Joe B. Blow Jr. etc.

Reminds me of a FLDS community.

"Jessop 183, would you go see if Jeffs 217 has the butter churn? Jessop 25 wants to know."

[_Lemmie]

Huh. Well this explains why I don't have a middle name OR middle initial, unlike every single one of my lds-born brothers, uncles, male cousins, grandfathers, grand-uncles, great-grandfathers, etc etc etc..

Long Live the Patriarchy.

Lemm I. E.

Hey, you can give yourself a real middle name. What would it be?

Actually, it's not really a problem. I fully embraced my lack of artificial church stature quite some time ago. I didn't even keep my oh-so-mormon maiden name as a legal middle name, like every other lds woman in my Mormon family does. As I was no longer LDS, I considered it sort of a symbolic tabula rasa.

Privately, though...yes, there are some middle names I have considered.

[_Paracelsus]

What is common for John T. Baptist and Winnie T. Pooh?

In most of the non-English languages this makes no sense.

Useful side effect of the "middle initial" obsession:
It sieves out most of the non-Utahns, non-WASPs to become an authority...

[_canpakes]

It is odd how moving to the next step beyond using solely the middle initial, to using the whole middle name, ends up making one sound like a person being identified as a serial killer.

[_Paracelsus]

What would be my middle initial? (initials...)
I am Paracelsus (/ˌpærəˈsɛlsəs/; 1493/4 – 24 September 1541), born Theophrastus von Hohenheim (full name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), I was a Swiss physician, alchemist, and astrologer of the German Renaissance.

Philippus A. T. B. von (v.) Hohenheim?

What about "von" or "zu" or "van der", "of"?
Are "Mc~" "Le~" count as middle name/initial?

The whole thing is pure snobbery.