Middle names

looksee

Following on from the killer thread -
Do any of you have 'opposite sex' middle names? I once volunteered the opinion that calling boys 'Mary' as a middle name was strange and a bit unfair - only to find the person I was talking to had given all their boys the middle name of Mary.

I don't have a middle name, I was going to have one but then my parents decided it was 'affected' to have a middle name and they saved it for the next child.

Grayson

same here. Except the reason I don't have a middle name is because my Dad didn't. All his brothers and sisters did. My sister does, it's just him and me.

corner of hells

My dad didn't have a middle either and when offered a job with a particular employer they insisted he must have or get a middle name

His first name was Liam and his solution was to call himself Liam Liam , his first name and second name being the same.

Beanntraigheach

Danger is my middle name.

D3V!L

I once knew a boy named Sue

Back in the good old days no Irish person would be a sufficient heretic to give their child the name Máire (or Pádraig or Íosa).

Damned Normans in their irreverence started that tradition. The Irish way was to insert a prefix - e.g. Maol Mhuire (devotee of the Virgin Mary), Giolla Phádraig (Servant of St Pádraig), Giolla Íosa (Servant of Jesus), etc. There's a similar tradition of reverence in Spanish nomenclature - e.g. Dolores means "sorrows", from the Spanish title of the Virgin Mary, María de los Dolores, meaning "Mary of Sorrows".

Ó Maoil Mhuire = descendant of the devotee of the virgin Mary, now anglicised as Mullery, Mulry etc.

Mac Giolla Phádraig = son of Giolla Phádraig; now anglicised as Fitzpatrick etc (the only 'Fitz' surname of Gaelic origin)
Mac Giolla Íosa, = son of Giolla Íosa, now anglicised as McAleese etc.

'Muls' and 'Gils' in Irish surnames

donegal_man

Friend of mine at school came from a very devout Catholic family who had given all of their children, boys and girls, the middle name "Mary".