{"id":14744,"date":"2020-05-19T09:05:41","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T13:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=14744"},"modified":"2020-05-19T11:03:54","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T15:03:54","slug":"baby-naming-issue-is-it-okay-to-add-another-middle-name-to-a-3-year-olds-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2020\/05\/19\/baby-naming-issue-is-it-okay-to-add-another-middle-name-to-a-3-year-olds-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: Is It Okay To Add Another Middle Name to a 3-Year-Old’s Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello!!<\/p>\n

I, like so many of us, have had extra time to ponder names as of late and have a serious question.<\/p>\n

I have a 3 year old daughter named Rosalie Jennifer (for my sister). And a 1 year old son named Alfred Paul Andrew (named for both grandfathers – we couldn\u2019t pick!). When I was pregnant with my daughter Anne was a strong contender for a middle name, because both grandmothers share this name (as a middle themselves)so everyone assumed that would be the middle name. And honestly I loved it and wanted it as a first name (husband didn\u2019t like!) but for some stubborn reason (bc everyone had an opinion about it of course and pregnancy hormones?!) I didn\u2019t want it and went with honoring my sister (which I am very happy about still!!). However, since then 2 middle names has seemed less weird and cumbersome and more WHY THE HECK NOT! Hence my sons two middles. And as a consequence I\u2019m seriously regretting not giving my daughter \u201cJennifer Anne\u201d. I\u2019m sad I didn\u2019t get to honor the grandmas too! We are done having kids, so future honor names are out. I\u2019ve broached the subject of adding to her name to husband and he\u2019s on board. I\u2019ve brought it up with her and she\u2019s fine with it! Except she would also like to add \u201cbunny rabbit\u201d haha!<\/p>\n

But is this another flippant desire?! Are two middle names actually cumbersome?! (My sons only 1 so no idea so far!). Is it worth all the time and effort? And lastly, is it completely past being an \u201chonor\u201d name if it\u2019s tacked on years later?!<\/p>\n

Thanks for all the help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sure, do it! I mean, when the pandemic is over and it is safe to do so! This is one of those naming regrets that’s relatively easy to fix; and the explanation (“We\/I just always regretted not honoring the grandmas”) is so endearing; and the change makes your kids’ names even more pleasingly coordinated; and everyone involved is on board, so I say why not?<\/p>\n

I do suggest changing your framing: “tacking it on years later,” “flippant desire,” etc. She is still so very little, and a formal\/legal court name change is hardly “tacking it on”; nor would a second middle name be any more tacked-on than it was in the case of your son’s name. I suspect the word choices are coming from you feeling a little sheepish\/self-conscious about changing the name at this point, but we want to make sure that doesn’t come across to the grandmothers as saying that adding their name is silly and no big deal and maybe doesn’t even count as an honor anymore. Make it a serious sentimental deal to THEM (use the word choices that are more like “seriously regretted” and “honestly I loved it” and “sad I didn’t get to honor the grandmas too”), and you don’t even have to tell many other people if you don’t want to.<\/p>\n

I have two middle names myself, and so do all my kids, and I have not found it cumbersome. The only real downside is that some forms only have room for one middle name\/initial, which is annoying but not cumbersome: we just all picked which middle name we were going to use as a default, for consistency (i.e., so we don’t have some forms where we’re FirstName A. Thistle and others where we’re Firstname L. Thistle).<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I don’t know exactly how much fuss and expense is involved in making a change like this, so I am hoping some others here have gone through this and can give a little report on what was involved. My impression is that there is a fee in the “not shocking but not nothing” range (e.g., $100, $150, $200, something like that), and that there is some paperwork to fill out, and that there is a court appointment; and that then you have to go around to a couple of other places (Social Security, etc.) to show them the court papers and make the change, and then there are probably some phone calls (changing her name with health insurance, that sort of thing). Similar to changing a surname at marriage, but less so in some ways (not as big a change, and no driver’s license or utilities or bank accounts or IRS to deal with) and more so in other ways (not as familiar a change, so clerks will be less accustomed to dealing with it).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello!! I, like so many of us, have had extra time to ponder names as of late and have a serious question. I have a 3 year old daughter named Rosalie Jennifer (for my sister). And a 1 year old son named Alfred Paul Andrew (named for both grandfathers – we couldn\u2019t pick!). When I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3PO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14744"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14749,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14744\/revisions\/14749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}