Althouse: You know, when someone is actually named Ann, she's probably tired of hearing people tell her: Ann is my middle name.

February 12, 2014

You know, when someone is actually named Ann, she's probably tired of hearing people tell her: Ann is my middle name.

Yeah, it's every woman's middle name.

32 comments:

Joseph of FP said...: I met a man with the last name of Certain. Every time he gave his name someone would joke, "are you certain?". Now THAT would be tiresome.

He took it all in stride though... or was just very good at hiding the bodies.; 2/12/14, 7:17 AM
rhhardin said...: Somebody revealed that their middle name was Mary the other day.

Ah. Her first name. Imus's Mary Dagen McDowell.

Go with the most unusual name is a good rule.

It's like constructing a computer language. The most unusual operators should have the highest precedence.

C made that huge mistake with low precedence for binary & and |, leaving a huge hole for bugs.; 2/12/14, 7:21 AM
DKWalser said...: Our youngest's middle name is Anne -- with and 'e'. As in, Anne of Green Gables. The mini-series was being broadcast while my wife was pregnant. There is no other reason. By the way, our Anne, like the fictional one, has red hair and a love for literature. When she was younger, I referred to her as Anne of Dead Hedge. Because our hedge was dying.

More than you needed to know.

Much more.; 2/12/14, 7:28 AM
Bob Ellison said...: Nobody ever says "Bob is my middle name." I may never understand the exhaustion you describe.; 2/12/14, 7:39 AM
madAsHell said...: When I lived in Tyler, Texas, everyone's middle name was Bob.

Joe Bob
Billy Bob
Mary Bob

It didn't matter.; 2/12/14, 8:05 AM
Bob Ellison said...: madAsHell, that sounds like heaven!; 2/12/14, 8:07 AM
Graham Powell said...: Wow, freaky. My mother, my wife's mother, and my wife's sister all have "Ann" as a middle name.

But my daughter broke the mold: it's her first name.; 2/12/14, 8:07 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: My poor sainted mother. She was born as D. Ann, never liked D., and somewhat liked Ann, so maybe when she was in her late 60s or so, I got tired of this, and spent a year or so addressing her as Ann. I knew plenty of people who had changed their names up a bit (including my paternal grandfather, who had done just this, reversing first and middle names), and figured it was better to just do it, and to keep whining. Besides, I thought that it was humorous. My poor, humor impaired mother, did not.; 2/12/14, 8:28 AM
Wince said...: Any name is better than a "goofy fuckin' boy's name" like Tanner Colby.; 2/12/14, 8:28 AM
MadisonMan said...: Everyone in my family has last names as middle names. My daughter's middle name is my Mom's Mom's maiden name. My middle name (and my Dad's) is my great-great-grandfather's last name. Mom's middle name was her Dad's Mom's maiden name. My sister's middle name is Mom's maiden name. My Son's name is my wife's maiden name. And so on.

Not an Ann or a Bob anywhere to be found!; 2/12/14, 8:43 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Nobody ever says "Bob is my middle name."

When I lived in Tyler, Texas, everyone's middle name was Bob.

When one of my brothers and I were both living in Austin, I figured we needed to start using Texas names. My four brothers all have/had the types of names that can be used that way. Mine, not so much. The one brother with "Robert" as a middle name got it shortened to "Bob". Still use it to this day on occasion, though I left there almost 15 years ago.

It was a generational thing for Robert, and probably Ann too. There is a web site where you put in a name, and it graphs it over time, going back maybe 150 years. And, up until the Baby Boom, Robert was inevitably in the top several names. I can think of maybe a dozen Roberts I have either a blood or blood/marriage relationship with. It is so bad that one of my great grandfathers was Robert William X, son of Robert Robert X (unless I have it backwards). Welsh, of course. Wife's parents and the other grandparents of her oldest grandchildren are both Bob and X. Her father is Bob, along with her best friend. Etc. Expect that the only reason that it was used as a middle name, and not a first name, in my family is that my mother's sister married a Bob, and my mother clashed with him for almost 60 years.; 2/12/14, 8:45 AM
Stoutcat said...: My family has the quaint tradition of not giving the daughters a middle name at birth; the point of which was that the last name became the middle name once said daughter got married. So among my generation of females, Kathleen, Susan, Polly, Sally, Katy, and Molly, with not a single middle name between us.

Meanwhile, the male offspring all got cool family middle names: Harding, Slayton, Miner...

Interestingly enough, each gal who has had daughters has continued the tradition. I love my family, but I sure got tired of putting in NMI on official forms.; 2/12/14, 8:50 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Everyone in my family has last names as middle names.

Ditto for my kid - four last names, two from each of their parents. It goes: MMM maiden name, PPM maiden name, M last name, P last name (M=Maternal, P=Paternal). (Or, I guess MMMP, PPMP, MP, P).; 2/12/14, 8:51 AM
Hagar said...: In southern Norway, Anne, Marie, and Tonette have been popular "middle" names for at least 4 centuries.
The man is right, they are euphonious.; 2/12/14, 9:02 AM
Hagar said...: Also Christine. Anne Christine works better than either by itself, and Christine Anne does not work at all.; 2/12/14, 9:15 AM
joethefatman said...: No-one in at least 4 generations of women in my family has had the name Ann or any derivatives. And this from a family that uses A for all the middle names.; 2/12/14, 9:51 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Everyone in my family has last names as middle names."

My middle name — also my father's middle name — is a last name: Adair.

It was his mother's doctor's name, and my father was the first baby he delivered.; 2/12/14, 10:39 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I grew up wishing I'd had a 3-syllable first name that began with "a," like Alison or Amanda.

Much, much later, I realized my parents had essentially given me that 3-syllable name: Ann Adair. If it were bunched together, it would be hard to see correctly for pronunciation. Annadair. Also, you'd need something else for the middle name. Too much clutter.

They liked Ann Adair so much that they overdid talking about it, causing me to reject it. I was told many times that if I become a movie star or something, my name could/should/would be Ann Adair (dropping the Althouse).

That rubbed me the wrong way for reasons that are hard to understand now.

Maybe when I started the blog, I should have called it: Ann: A Dare.; 2/12/14, 10:46 AM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Ann, so you were "triple A" Althouse! What's not to like?

I doubt that my parents chose my middle name for euphony. Who goes around calling anyone "Michelle Kathleen"?

It's odd that no one has yet mentioned the old convention of women taking their birth surname as middle name upon marrying. My mom did; she had an existing middle name, but dropped it for her birth surname when she married my dad.; 2/12/14, 10:58 AM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: From the great Saki:

"Is your maid called Florence?"

"Her name is Florinda."

"What an extraordinary name to give a maid!"

"I did not give it to her; she arrived in my service already christened."

"What I mean is," said Mrs. Riversedge, "that when I get maids with unsuitable names I call them Jane; they soon get used to it."

"An excellent plan," said the aunt of Clovis coldly; "unfortunately I have got used to being called Jane myself. It happens to be my name."

The whole (delightful) story is here.; 2/12/14, 11:03 AM
Ctmom4 said...: That made me laugh. I am Carol Ann, and I have met only one Carol in my life whose middle name was not Ann.; 2/12/14, 12:31 PM
Carl said...: I blame considerations of euphony and the modern preference to give girls names with three or more syllables. When you give a long first name, a short middle name gives the combo better rhythm. And as it happens, "Ann" is one of the relatively few anodyne feminine monosyllable names.; 2/12/14, 1:56 PM
MadisonMan said...: I am Carol Ann, and I have met only one Carol in my life whose middle name was not Ann.

Carroll O'Connor?; 2/12/14, 2:13 PM
Steven Wilson said...: I think Lee or Lea or Leigh anything pronounced li would give Ann(e)(a) a run for its money.; 2/12/14, 3:08 PM
SchrefflerFamily said...: I also know quite a lot of women with the middle name Elizabeth/Elisabeth; 2/12/14, 3:09 PM
SarcastiCarrie said...: Ann/Anne
Lynn/Lynne
Marie/Mary

Those were the most common middle name for girls. However, nowadays, we give two first names like Olivia Grace or Elizabeth Annalise. Madison Renee, etc.

It used to be you gave a rather common middle name so that when the young woman dropped her middle name upon marrying it was no great loss, I suppose. And my middle name is Anne.; 2/12/14, 3:40 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Carl,

I blame considerations of euphony and the modern preference to give girls names with three or more syllables. When you give a long first name, a short middle name gives the combo better rhythm. And as it happens, "Ann" is one of the relatively few anodyne feminine monosyllable names.

As it happens, my mom was "Linda Joan." And she needed the middle name, because even in her tiny class there was another Linda with the same surname. Rural Wisconsin was like that.; 2/12/14, 4:01 PM
kimsch said...: My middle name is Ann. When I worked with another Kim in a call center, I became Annie at work so when people called and asked for Kim we knew who they wanted.

My mom has always used her middle name (a grandmother's first name) but a friend of her's and my dad's always addressed things to her with her maiden initial instead of her middle name. It did not matter how many times Mom told him to use the M of her middle name, he kept using the S of her maiden name.; 2/12/14, 5:09 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Hagar,

"Anne Christine"

HERESY!

It's Anna Christina! Have you no sense of meter???; 2/12/14, 6:03 PM
ken in tx said...: I had two female relatives, one called Nanalee and the other Analar. It wasn't until I read their obituaries that I found out their names were Nancy Lee and Anna Laura.; 2/12/14, 6:47 PM
CarolMR said...: "That made me laugh. I am Carol Ann, and I have met only one Carol in my life whose middle name was not Ann."

I am Carol Marie. When I was in grade school the nuns would always call me Carol Ann. I was too afraid of them to correct them.; 2/12/14, 6:53 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Kir Parker,

It's Anna Christina! Have you no sense of meter???

Not to mention that "Anne Christine" sounds perilously like "Anchor Steam." I would be surprised if Siri could tell them apart.; 2/12/14, 9:12 PM