I've been thinking recently about middle names. Here in the US they are effectively second given names; Other countries have different traditions. I believe in some Arabic countries the middle name is relating to the father...meaning son/daughter of whoever. I have a friend expecting a baby in June, and although they are keeping the name secret until the big day, they often get suggestions, which are pretty amusing. Of course, some people use their middle name instead of the first. My grandma's name was Annie Etoyle...and she hated Annie (go figure--out of those two), so she went by Etoyle. My dad is David, rather than Henry. I have a cousin who was always known by his middle name, which is an unusual one (Spurgeon), but when he started to work went by Larry...and actually his wife and her family call him Larry. My friend Rena goes by her middle name...just so you know her first name is Melissa, not Michelle. When my parents were deciding on my name they sort of took Lisa from my Aunt--she was planning on naming her daughter that (she had two boys). Anyway, if she would have named me my middle name would've been Leigh. Her two sons' middle names are Lee, and her grandsons' also have Lee as their middle name. Some people have sort of common middle names. Nothing against their parents, but I know several people who share Marie as their middle name, not a bad name, just seems to be popular for a middle. My granddad didn't have a middle name. His name was originally Estee, but I think when he got his SS card he decided to change it to S.T. So his initials stood for nothing. My mom's middle name is Anne...so yes, her name is Ba-ba-ba-barbara Anne, which is what Austin called her when he was a kid. She was named long before the Beach Boys were singing. My middle name is Ellen, after my great-grandmother. I have no complaints about that one...pretty decent. So whether your middle name is Marie, Grace, Herbert, or Walter sorry it's taken me so long to update this blog.
Oh, and the picture...it's something made for my grandma by her boyfriend in high school. I don't know who he was, only he wasn't S.T. If you look really hard you'll notice there's a BHS painted on...Bowman High School. Another thing I got from her house...and since my name is Ellen it fit.