Dear Swistle,
This is a hypothetical question as there is no baby on the way, but hopefully someday soon. My husband and I have one son. His middle name is my maiden name (which I still go by) and his last name is my husband’s last name. His first name is a name we liked that honors no one. I’ve liked his full name because my name was 1/3rd of it. But now my question is for our next child. Can he/she have the same middle name? Is that common or is it weird? I know you advocate for two middle names, which we obviously didn’t do for the first child but I’m considering it for our second. However, I feel like it diminishes the role/importance of my name. I also kind of wonder if we have a girl does that change things? Is it too masculine sounding to have a last name as a middle name? Part of me is just bummed out that my kids and I have/will have different last names and there is just no perfect solution.
I will try to remember to update if the time comes. Thanks for reading, love your blog!
Absolutely the next child can have the same middle name, particularly when the reason for doing that in this case is so clear: no one is going to say, “Wait, you used your surname as the middle name for…BOTH children???”
And I don’t think anything changes if the next baby is a girl. Many girls and women have surnames as middle names, and I don’t think the practice has a masculine vibe—particularly since the surname would be her mother’s.
Name update:
After two miscarriages, we added a daughter to our family two weeks ago. I would love to share both of my kids’ names, but I’m too much of a private person. I think you all would approve though. I decided to give our daughter my surname as her middle name, the same as her big brother. Swistle’s response and a lot of the comments helped reassure me with my decision, so thank you!
Absolutely both kids can have your maiden name as a middle. And since baby #1 has that as his only middle, I would do the same for #2.
If you don’t want them to share a middle name though, there are other ways the middle name can honor you. Use your own first or middle name, or your mother’s name, fathers name, mother’s maiden name, name of a grandparent, etc. That way they still have a name from your side but they have their own middle.
I think either option is great! Good luck, I hope baby #2 is on the way for you soon.
Ditto everything Swistle said. And I don’t think you need to give baby #2 two middle names unless you want to.
I think it’s a great idea to give your kids the same middle name.
I know a family where the wife and husband moved/added her maiden name to the middle name spot when they got married, so that she went from Jenny Ann SMITH to Jenny Smith PARKER (which is fairly common), but he also went from Nathan James PARKER to Nathan Smith PARKER. Their kids both have Smith as a middle name as well, so they are Ashley Smith PARKER and Jackson Smith PARKER. Amusingly, the kids find the idea of everyone in other families having different middle names mildly confusing–and think their family’s tradition makes more sense!
My husband and I did the same thing. He changed his middle name to be my maiden name. We came up with the idea because my in-laws did it! We don’t have kids yet, but I am on the fence between just giving the kids my maiden as their middle, or doing two middles: an honor name and my maiden name… We shall see!
I am also all aboard the “both kids with same middle” train! My husband is one of 3 boys, and all three have the same middle name. I also have friends who both have their mom’s maiden names as their middles (they are both women, and the middle name is definitely “last name-y” and not a “girl’s name”) and they both really like the tie to their mom. My own middle name isn’t a surname, but IS a Very Traditionally Masculine family name (Wesley) and I love the uniqueness / don’t mind that my middle name is non-feminine.
We gave our daughter my sister’s first name for her middle name, and I’m strongly considering giving our upcoming son my own maiden name as his middle. I feel like I get to honor me & my family this way with both kids – so as Dances w Diapers says above, you could potentially use something else from your name / your family to accomplish a “1/3 you” even if it’s not your maiden name. I am clearly a strong advocate of getting the mom’s name/family honored when the kids all get the dad’s last name ;-)
Another option a family I know adopted was to give their second kid mom’s surname. You could kind of do the opposite of what you have now. So if your son is James Smith Jones, your next child can be Rebecca Jones Smith.
This is personally what I would be doing if my country didn’t have a law stating that all children from the same partnership need to have the same surname. In this way, you don’t need to feel bummed that the kids don’t have your name either…
I don’t see any problem. If all the children will have your husband’s name, it (hopefully!) shouldn’t be strange that they have yours as well. There is no perfect or 1 best way to include both parents in their children’s names, and this particular solution is one I know many people have used. It’s not odd, and its a lovely practice for either a boy or a girl. I’ve known many women who have a family surname as a middle.
I think it’s actually ideal to give them both the same middle name if it’s your maiden. I have the opposite issue: We are using my husbands surname for all children and my first has a middle I just liked, my second has my dad;s first name as a middle, and now I’m pregnant with #3 and would like to use my last name (never changed it) as the middle, but I feel like it wouldn’t be fair.
I love this idea so much. One of my best friends from college has a surname as her middle name, and I always thought it sounded so fancy and distinguished. So I definitely wouldn’t worry about a baby girl not having a feminine name as her middle name.
My friend and her two siblings all have their mom’s maiden name as their middle—and her brother even used it for his own daughter, which I loved.
Chiming in to say that I think it is okay for girls to have a middle name that isn’t necessarily feminine. We went the two-middle names route with our daughter (our first) and would do the same with any future children. My surname (which I still use) is her second middle name, so: First Middle MYlast HISlast. My surname is definitely not feminine and in fact, is sometimes used as a first name for boys.
I personally don’t know anyone with the same middle names. But I strongly agree that this is not weird at all. I really like the idea!
I love it! If my surname were anything less awkward, I’d have done this for my girls, instead of relegating it to the second middle slot. I love the symmetry of giving both / all of your kids the same middle.
My only other idea would be to give your second child a name from your mother’s family? I assume your surname is your father’s family name.
I have a semi-relevant story for you – we gave my second daughter a surnamey first middle then my surname as second middle (to match her sister.) When she was six months old, I had some major name regret, partly to do with her first name, partly to do that her first middle name was a surname name used on boys (so she didn’t have a viable back-up name if she didn’t want to use her first at some point), partly to do with the fact that I felt like we had heavily honoured every line of her family except my mom’s line. Long story short, we changed both her middles – first middle is now a viable alternate first name (a ‘serious’ name next to her lighter first) and honoured my mom’s family in that second middle slot (using my mom’s middle name, which is also my great-grandmother’s first name) and I love her full name now. And appreciate that we covered off all of the family through both girls’ names.
Ooh ooh, my parents did this! Both my brother and I have my mom’s maiden as our middle (and she never changed her name.). So we were Mom Jane Taylor, Andrew Taylor Claybrook, Sara Taylor Claybrook, and Dad Henry Claybrook. And it worked out great and was super normal. I highly recommend this tradition.
I didn’t change my name either, and I wanted to give my kids my maiden as a middle, but there were bizarre rhyming issues, so I used my middle as their middle. So I have Emma Taylor Saylook and Ella Taylor Saylook. I am sometimes sad they don’t have my last name as their middle, but E Claybrook Saylook was a little too much. And it gives me a lot of joy regularly to have part of my name in theirs.
I have a friend who has two kids, 1 boy 1 girl and they each have her maiden name as their middle. She hyphenated her name so she is First Middle Maiden Married and the kids are First Mom’s Maiden Dad’s Last. And they give the kids first names that start with the same letter so their initials are the same.
I have 3 sisters, and my mom named us all the same middle name – her maiden name. We all love it and she still thinks it was the best decision (we are all grown and married now with our own kids).
Of course it’s ok!
I also know a family where they all (all boys) have the same Saint’s name as the middle and I know more than one family that all have Mary as their middle name. Just wanted to point out that some cultures do this traditionally.
My son has two middles and I find the second one gets dropped a lot (even by me? So if you go that route maybe put the surname first middle.
I’m just going to chime in my general agreement– yes it’s fine, no it doesn’t change for a girl, no need for two middles unless you want to use two.
Not weird at all! :)
When I got married, I dropped my middle name and moved my maiden name to the middle spot and took my husband’s last name. Now all three of my kids (two girls and one boy) also have my maiden name as their middle. They all like it, and they think it’s weird that my husband has a different middle name. It’s never been an issue. Occasionally, I wish I had given my kids two middle names because there are a lot of names I love, but it’s never been a problem for any other reason.
My husband is also thinking of changing his middle to match the rest of us, but it’s a lot of paperwork, and I’m not sure if he’ll ever get around to it.
Someone above mentioned flipping the surname/middle name for baby number two, so B#2 shares your legal surname and has dad’s surname as middle. Great idea, and I came to throw out a similar idea.
I know a family where the parents went every-other with the surnames. They did some other patterns with the names, surrounding the culture of origin for Mom’s surname for the ones without Mom’s last name. It really worked for a great sib set! They are capped at three kiddos, so it’s 3 with one surname and 2 with the other.
I have a friend where the oldest kid has dad’s surname, second has mom’s and third has moms surname for a middle and Dads surname for last name. I was friends with the oldest from kindergarten to college. I didn’t realize her siblings had different last names until high school and I went to her house most weekends. I did ask a quick “wait -is middle sibling your full sibling or what happened?” I got a quick explanation and never really thought about it again other than to consider this for my kids.
I’d guess it was zero hassle for the kids and rarely a hassle for parents. In fact it is no different in execution than a blended family post divorce. But very cool way to honor your family!
And having kids with the same middle is great! Especially if they are not the same gender.
Definitely stick to your instincts and give your second child your last name as his/her middle. I have such regret that I didn’t push my husband more on this issue. I also kept my own last name, but let all of our kids be given only his last name. It honestly makes me so mad that
1. I didn’t push to have my name included more
2. He was (and still is) completely ok with our “solution” of me being odd person out of our family name.
This year has woken me up to so many of these gender injustices and inequalities that seemingly kind/progressive men are totally fine with and who, in the same breath, will dismiss the injustice as trivial, but then balk at any change to the current system that takes some of the advantage away from them.
Preach!!
Mom of two girls with my last name as their middle name here! I went back and forth about it, but decided to do the same thing with girl number two because I didn’t want to feel like I was only giving my name to one kid- especially when dad gets to give his name to both. He was very open to having the girls have my last name instead of his or doing one name for each, but we went the traditional route on last names.
My five year old likes that she has one name from each of us. I like that even if they choose to change their last name one day, they’ll likely still have my name! My last name is very German last name- nothing pretty or feminine about it.
Go for it!
There are some cultures where the kids are regularly given the same middle name, like Russia’s Petrovich/Petronova for sons and daughters of Peter. Alexei Petrovich Romanov or what have you. Similarly, a friend of Indian extraction shares her middle name (Dad’s first name) with both her sisters. J.R.R. Tolkien’s kids all have R.R. Tolkien after their first name. Same Rs, though I don’t remember what offhand.
Both of my daughters (aged 8 & 5) have my last name (my current surname not “maiden”) as their only middles. (We prob would have hyphenated but felt our surnames were too long for that.) They love having the same middle & having my last. My partner & I love that both of our last names are on their legal docs. Personally, I am more surprised when friends have given only one kid their surname as a middle and given other kids non-surname middles!
Do it! I am one of four sibs (both genders among us) and we’re all in our 30s now. We all have mom’s last as our middles, and nobody has any second middles. Our names have aged well for all of us. We like the connection between us now that we’re all married and having our own families, too.
I gave my daughter my maiden name as her middle and I love it. It’s not an easy first-name surname one like Avery or something, either. Just a normal, middle of the road surname. Everyone comments how it’s great too. I think it’s totally fine for a girl, not too masculine at all.
I know a pair of sisters with the same middle. And it isn’t a maiden or sentimental name, it’s not especially elaborate or beautiful…it literally is just a name that their parents liked! So, for anyone reading these comments for inspiration on this question, you absolutely can give siblings the same middle name.
Late, here with the update but I want to add that my childhood best friend and her brother were named this way, ie Susy MomLast DadLast and Johnny MomLast DadLast (the mom kept her name). At the time (elementary school) I was sorry for my friend that she didn’t have a pretty/girly middle name, but it never seemed masculine to me. Now I think it’s a nice tradition and a good step toward dismantling the patriarchy.
Yes!! My 2 daughters have my last as their middle. We wanted to hyphenate our last names for them but it just felt *too* long. But they refer to themselves as the Mylast-DadsLast girls! I am so glad we did it.
Chiming in very late – and after the update! – as this is an issue dear to my heart. Both me and my brother have our mam’s maiden name as our middle names and we both love it dearly. My dad registered my birth and didn’t put my mam’s maiden name on the birth certificate. My mam was furious and made him go back and re-do it properly. I also had a friend who had Edward as a middle name as his mum’s maiden name was Edwards. So glad you did it!