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From: bennison@clt.DEC (Victor Bennison - DTN 381-2156)
Newsgroups: net.roots
Subject: Re: middle names
Message-ID: <236@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Thu, 2-Jan-86 17:38:36 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.236
Posted: Thu Jan  2 17:38:36 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 3-Jan-86 04:23:49 EST
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Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
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---
>  Does anyone know when the practice of giving people middle names
>started? Old records (1700s) rarely show them. Is it that people did
>not record middle names or is it that they did not have them?
> 
>                       Mickey Lane

I'm not an expert on the subject, but you all know that that has never
stopped me before.  In the U.S. the year 1800 is a pretty accurate date
to place the start of the use of middle names.  In the families I've 
worked on, the earliest date for a middle name I've seen is about 1786.
By the year 1810 the use is very widespread.  The names of children
didn't appear in the census records until 1850, but in that census you will
find most people over 50 don't have middle names, but many of their children
will be listed with middle names.  So it isn't just a matter of not using
them, the old folk didn't have them.  There is a difference, by the way,
between multiple christening names and middle names.  Many old German
baptismal records for example show children with multiple names.  A common
example might be:

    Johan Christian Lupp
    Johan Martin Lupp
    Anna Catherina Lupp
    Anna Maria Lupp

Where these are all children born in the same family.  Generally these people
would never again use the "first" name, but would go by Christian, Martin,
Catherine and Maria.  By "using middle names" I mean the practice of giving
a person a secondary given name which would often be used at least for formal
records such as census records, wills, etc., i.e., the practice that we have
today in the U.S.  

There are some notable exceptions to the rule:

    Martha Dandridge Custis, born 1731 (Mrs. Washington)
    John Singleton Copley, born 1738
    Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, born 1746
    John Paul Jones, born 1747
    John Quincy Adams, born 1767
    William Henry Harrison, born 1773

But 1800 seems to mark the time when the practice became widespread in the
U.S.  Perhaps it was a custom of the upper crust, that became popular with
the hoi polloi about that time.  I haven't looked at the English records 
enough to venture an opinion on the use of middle names there.

    				Vick Bennison
    				...decvax!decwrl!rhea!tools!bennison
    				(603) 881-2156