Context: I was listening to a podcast and it seems it’s common among Catholics, from what I understood your second name is given to you after Confirmation? I haven’t heard such thing.

42 comments

  1. In my experience it’s not common among Catholics. 3/4 of my family is Catholic, no one goes by “Randall John” or “Peggy Sue”. The only time you hear middle names is when a kid is getting a warning.

  3. Confirmation names are almost never used outside that sacrament. It’s less of a middle name than a name used to signify full membership in the Church.

  4. DO you mean a middle name? I personally don’t know anyone who goes on a first and second name basis, though initials aren’t unheard of. Example: Thomas James Smith might go as Tom, Jim, or TJ. I can’t speak to the Catholic naming convention, but any Catholic I knew used the aforementioned naming convention in day-to-day life (outside of church).

  5. Have a friend who’s actual first name is John Paul. It’s often not just a first and middle name it could be their actual name. Something like Marybeth

  6. Don’t have a catholic bone in my body, but do have a middle name. It’s usually just an older relative’s name.

    In bits of the south it’s stereotypical for women to have a two part name ending in ‘Ann’: Barbara Ann, Betty Ann, Kathy Ann. Never thought of it as particularly catholic though.

  7. Many people have a middle name, which is often given after a family member; Roman Catholics also get Saint names, which may or may not be the middle names.

    For example, my middle name is my father’s given name, my brother’s is my maternal grandfather’s given name, and my baby brother’s is my father’s favorite brother’s given name.

  9. I have both a middle name and a catholic name. Catholic names are selected based on saints and what they preside over. So like, St Patrick is the patron saint of engineers I think, so it’s a pretty common name for guys to pick. I think the patron saint of athletes was also popular when I was confirmed. Same with patron saint of musicians. But it’s not added as a legal part of your name like the middle name is. It’s just written down somewhere on a church document along with whatever records they keep of sacraments you’ve received.

    Outside of getting confirmed, literally no one has ever called me by my catholic name. And the only time my middle name gets used is as an extra layer of ID on legal documents, or when I was super in trouble with my mother growing up.

    Worth mentioning, having a legal middle name is pretty common. Actually getting called by your middle name varies regionally. For instance parts of the US commonly use those double names like Mary Sue. I also know some people who went by their middle name because they were named after a parent and going by their middle name avoided confusion at home. Or the parent’s name was old fashioned.

  10. If I am called by my first and middle name, I did something to seriously piss my mom off.

  11. For Catholics, confirmation names are often a second *middle* name. They’re rarely included on anything, but there are some exceptions – for example, author George RR Martin, the second R is his confirmation name.

  12. I would think your “second name” is your middle name, and the name Catholics take at confirmation is your “confirmation name”. It’s completely ceremonial and you will never use it again.

    The only exceptions are elderly folks, who might use their confirmation name on their ID still. Nowadays no one would go through the trouble. And I know from my family in Puerto Rico that it is still common to use it as part of your legal name there, where everyone has like 7 names anyway.

    I took the name Frederick at confirmation, but I never used it other than that day, and I left the church entirely years later.

  13. Don’t know anything about any religious context of getting names, I am not involved in those activities.

    “Second” or *more aptly used. MIDDLE NAMES.*. Comes into:

    Parents: Will use First and Middle names, when mad, and will use FULL NAMES First, Middle, Last Name when extremely mad, and thats a hint to run for the hills and your life!

    Person: Some persons use their middle name as they don’t like their first name. I’ve seen all sorts of uses of this.. From Using the middle name, to using an initial for the first and using the middle ie: J. Edgar Snyder and commonly called “J Edgar.”

    Common? Well most persons I know have a FIRST, MIDDLE, Last name. Occasionally you may run into ones with out a middle name, but its really rare in my experience.. doesn’t mean there couldn’t still be statistically significant amount, especially out of 330M people, but its definitely less than 1% in my interactions.

  14. I’m not sure, but I think you may be referring to two different things.

    1) Catholic teens can choose a saint’s name when they’re confirmed. It’s really never used outside that sacrament.

    2) It’s traditional to name Catholic kids after saints when they’re born (though it’s not always done). This can be first name, middle name, both, or neither. This is different from the confirmation name. You’ll also hear some kids who go by both first and middle name in day to day life (Mary Katherine, Anne-Marie, etc.) but that’s not exclusive to Catholics.

    Hope that clarifies and doesn’t muddy the water.

  15. Catholic conformation names are not usually the same thing as middle names. Middle names are normally a second name you get when you’re named as a baby. Confirmation names are a religious name you may or may not choose as a teen. It’d be given as part of the confirmation, not after.

    When I was a teen in the 90s, confirmation names were optional and I think one kid in my year chose one out of a couple dozen, and it was a name his family used and therefore had special importance to him. It was more required in my mom’s generation, but even then, I know my mother chose her middle name for her confirmation name because it was already her middle name.

    Some places, two first names are the norm, but I’ve never lived in one of them so I’ll let someone else explain how that works.

  16. I have never heard my confirmation name after my confirmation and I do not know anyone who has been called by theirs.

    Random confirmation story: the bishop talked about the wrong saint for me which was funny

  17. It’s more common than not to have a middle name. Typically you only hear it when you are in massive amounts of trouble with your parents or spouse

  18. Raised Catholic, yes there is a confirmation name that you choose during the confirmation process in your teens. No, it is never used in modern times in the US. There is probably a church record with it somewhere, but it is not part of your legal name. I don’t think my parents would even remember what it is.

  19. No, middle names are not confirmation names. IME most Americans have middle names. It is substantially less common for people to go by their first and middle names. However, I am one of those people, kind of. Within my family that is how I am called, and so anyone who met me before I was about five or six calls me firstname+middle name. But in early grade school I started going by just my first name, which is how I introduce myself. Nowadays that is what most people call me, but my family still includes the middle name which is fine lol.

  21. There’s a Hasidic preference to give kids the Hebrew and Yiddish versions of the same name (Menachem-Mendel) and not-infrequently use both, but that’s about it. I don’t even know if it exists in non-Lubavich (Chabad) communities.

  22. A friend of mine is Catholic. He doesn’t use his first name. On his business cards, it’s ‘J.’, followed by his full Middle name (which is the one he uses).

  23. Most people have middle names, very few use them regularly, although I know a few people who use their middle name rather than their first name (my father-in-law and brother-in-law both do that).

  24. If you mean “middle name”, I know a few people who go by their middle names only. For whatever reason, while they were younger, they (or their parents) preferred to call them by their middle name rather than their first name and it stuck. From what I’ve noticed, in my personal experience, this seems to be most common among people who were named after their father. So to distinguish which you were talking about, you’d call the dad by the first name and the son by their middle name. But to be clear, this isn’t at all “common”, I only know 3 people who go by their middle name and judging by other comments, that’s an unusually large amount.

    What’s probably more common is people who go by first and middle initials. So, if their name is “Christopher Joseph Thomas”, you might call them “CJ”. But the vast majority of people would just go by Chris or Christopher.

    If you don’t mean a middle name, and actually do mean a confirmation name, I have never met anyone who goes by their confirmation name in any context.

  26. I have a confirmation name, a nickname, and two middle names. Also my last name is pronounced weirdly so I’m that person who always has to correct people on my names.

  27. Most Americans have a middle name. Parents seem to most commonly use a combo of first and second name when scolding or trying to get the attention of their children.

  28. Most people in the US have a First, Middle, and Last name.

    People usually just use their first and last name in casual conversation.

    On official documentation all three might be used.

    Some people have a compound first name like John Henry, Maribeth, Mary Sue, Marijuana, Deborah Anne. Sometimes that compound first name is in lieu of a middle name. My cousin has a name like that. No middle name but a compound first name. When she got married she just added her maiden name as a middle name and took her husbands surname.

    So for example I might be called Cup (first) Be (middle) Empty (last). In that scenario people would call me Cup.

    I may be CupBe (first) and Empty (last) with no middle name. People would call me CupBe.

    As far as Catholics go you do choose a confirmation name. It is the name of a saint.

    It is very rarely used as anything official and is mostly just for the sacrament of confirmation. You wouldn’t use it on official documentation.

    That said Catholics very often have middle names or first names derived from the Bible or saints already.

  29. Not common for both names to be used, but first 2 initials is often used like AJ.
    Very rare for confirmation name to be ever used.
    Sometimes the middle name is a family name, like the mother’s maiden name.

  30. My parents gave me a middle name when I was born but don’t like it; anyone calling me “SevenSixOne MiddleName” in any context would be wildly inappropriate because that’s not the name I use.

  31. It is relatively uncommon but still, you hear it occasionally particularly with women. I know people who go by Mary Jane, Mary Sarah, Sarah Grace, and Carla Sue. Two of them are 30s-40s, two of them are 60s-70s.

    This generally has nothing to do with confirmation or Catholicism. I am pretty certain at least a couple of the people I named above have separate middle names – like, “Sarah Grace Elizabeth Jones” where “Sarah Grace” is a first name.

  32. Middle names are common, but you have those from birth.

    Confirmation names are a Catholic tradition and it is not common in US population as a whole. They are somewhat akin to a second middle name, but I am not sure they are on any legal documents.

  34. I have a middle name (given to me by my parents at birth) and a confirmation name (a saint that I chose at confirmation when I was 14 or whatever) plus a first and last name for a total of 4 names.

    * No one uses my confirmation name, not even me.
    * No one uses my middle name except for my mother when I’m in big trouble, in which case she’d call me by both my first and middle names.

  35. I am a rare weirdo American with only one name. I only have a first name. No middle name at all. The kicker is that nobody ever calls me by that first name, either! I have a nickname that everyone uses so much that a lot of people only know me by the nickname.

  36. I was named after my father. My middle name is his confirmation name.

    My mother was given no middle name, but always used her confirmation name as part of her full name.

    My sister‘s name is the combination of her first and middle names. We only know her as this, as if that was her full first name.

    My son was almost always referred to by both his first and middle names when he was young – not so much any more.

    I always used my middle name when asked to provide my “full” name. I now omit it – first and last only. My middle name now seems quite foreign to me, as if it really isn’t a part of my name.

  37. I know a lot of girls with names like Mary Kate or Mary Beth or Mary (insert obscure Southern family name) where they go by both first and second names. I’m pretty sure most of them are not Catholic, though.

  38. Everyone in my family has middle names, as do most of our friends, and most of us aren’t Catholic. My wife changed her middle name to her maiden name when we got married (which is very common). In general middle names either sound good together, or honor a family member – my son’s middle name is my grandfather’s middle name, we wanted to honor his memory without making my son feel like he had to live up to his example. My daughter’s middle name is just pretty, but we also found out that her first name+middle name is a kind of flower (which she loves).

    Middle names area also another option to go by if you don’t care for your first name, or if there are more than one of you in the family – one of my friends is the third in his family with his name , but both he and his father go by their middle names as the first name is unusual and not very desirable.

    If someone is named James William Smith, they could go by James, Jimmy, Jim, William, Will, Bill, Willy (less common), or Billy, and nobody would think anything of it.

  39. Everyone I know has a middle name, & in the south, we often name our kids with the intention of them being called by both names. My grandmother, mom, aunt, son, SIL, & niece are all called by their first & middle names, but they go by just their first sometimes too.

  40. It’s common to use first and middle names in the South(Biily Bob, Peggy Sue, etc.)

  41. We usually call second names “middle names.”

    They’re very common and are typically assigned at birth. It’s part of your legal name. Catholics also get a confirmation name, but it’s not part of your legal name.

    The only time I use my middle name is on official paperwork, like taxes or job applications. Some people don’t like their first name, so they use their middle name (e.g., Mitch McConnell goes by his middle name; his real first name is Addison). My mom calls me by my first and middle name when I do something that upsets her lol

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