When is Middle Name Pride Day?
"Middle Name Pride Day" occurs in March on the Friday of Celebrate Your Name Week which takes place the first full week of March.
What is Middle Name Pride Day?
"Middle Name Pride Day (MNPD) is a day to celebrate "middle" names. MNPD is celebrated as other than a legal or civic holiday..
"Middle Name Pride Day" encourages people worldwide to step beyond tolerance or even acceptance of the name or names that fall between his or her first name and his or her surname. MNPD is noted across the United States in newspaper articles such as the "St. Louis Post Dispatch" and this one from the Oakland Tribune."
"According to its founder, the way to celebrate MNPD is to take pride in one's middle name(s) by revealing it (them) to at least three people who don't already know the middle name(s)."
Motivation
""Middle Name Pride Day" founder, Jerry Hill, tells that the day was established to give people a chance to feel good about their middle name(s). "It just seemed that people can tend to 'hide' a middle name. They might do so for any number of reasons (e.g., if, for whatever reasons, a person considers his or her middle name to be 'embarrassing'). What MNPD represents is a chance to let a person's middle name(s) receive the recognition that its giver most likely intended for it/them. Its 'moment in the sun' so to speak."
"It does happen sometimes that a middle name, or names, might be ignored by some or perhaps ridiculed by others. People sometimes prefer to indicate their middle name via an initial (e.g., "John T. Smith" rather than "John Thomas Smith"). Harry S. Truman's middle name however, actually was comprised of just the letter "S." Some people have no middle name whatsoever, others may have several middle names. Naming traditions can vary considerably, and in some cultures one could have several or many "middle names.""
"Middle names are sometimes, with or without merit, regarded as odd, embarrassing, or maybe "obscure." U.S. President Richard Nixon's middle name, "Milhous", might be considered by some to be an example of an "unconventional" middle name. Newly elected U.S. president Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein, has been debated, discussed and gained attention in any of several ways."
"There are those, including well-known politicians, movie stars and other celebrities, who are known by their middle name(s)rather than by their first name. Examples of famous people who use a middle name other than their first include Ralph D. Earnhardt, Robert T. Turner, Dorothy F. Dunaway and John E. Hoover."
Origins
(e.g. F. Scott Fitzgerald and W. Somerset Maugham). Sometimes the first name is not commonly used at all (e.g. Paul McCartney whose first name is James). Rarely, individuals may be given only initials as middle names, with the initial(s) not explicitly standing for anything (e.g., Harry S. Truman). This practice is common among the Amish, who commonly use the first letter of the mother's maiden name as a solitary initial for the sons and daughters. Thus, the children of Sarah Miller would use the middle initial M. The practice of abbreviating middle names to initials is rare in the United Kingdom."
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English Speaking Countries/middle names
"In the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, a child is sometimes given a middle name that is the first or middle name of one of his or her parents. In the United States, it's also common for a baby boy to be given the same full name as his father, in which case the middle name may be used as if a first name so as to distinguish him from his father."
"While some people might choose to "hide" a middle name for any number of reasons (i.e., they consider the middle name they were given to be an "embarrassment"), others have taken to celebrating their middle name (i.e., Middle Name Pride Day). Middle names are usually not used in everyday life. People known primarily by their middle name may abbreviate their first name to an initial
