Stuck in the middle

My ongoing experience with envelopes and databases is teaching me that a lot of people's bank accounts include their middle names.

That seems weird when I think about it (and, denied more interesting things, I've thought about stuff like this a lot this week). They feel out of place at work because I usually hear middle names at baptisms or graduations or other weirdly formal ceremonies.¹

So as I folded and sealed, as I clacked away at my keyboard, I thought about how we ended up with surnames. I imaigne this could go all the way back to the days when "Hey you!" wasn't good enough, but I was thinking only of the time when "Richard" or "Sarah" wasn't good enough. Richard was a baker so he got to be Richard-the-baker, and eventually Richard Baker. So I'm told; it seems too easy, but then why shouldn't it be easy? Sometimes language is, and that's one of the things I like about it.² If someone didn't think these things made sense they probably wouldn't have developed the way they did, right?

But further distinction seems a bit gratuitous. I like the Russian patronymics (and the Scandinavian ones even more; I love that there are still people called things like Björk Guðmundsdóttir). My high-school Spanish teacher once explained something complicated to me about how a married woman does not always give up her name and both are passed on to the kids, giving that string of felicitious syllables following them around as a tail does a kite. That kind of built-in family history is cool.

But in my native culture the choices seem so arbitrary.³ Is Thomas Matthew Smith ever going to feel the slightest bit Matthew? I suspect not; he's just Tom, or at best Thomas M. Is Ann (with or without the e) really the only name that sounds good appended to most women's names? Is sounding good together really the only thing that matters?

Like most other enigmas, I am sure this one can be formed into an insightful LJ poll.

[Poll #748705]

¹ And reprimands by my mother. That's the only time my mddle name's really been used for anything. My dad and brother would first get the intermediate stage: The Whole First Name, but I'm only Holly so she had to go immediately to Holly Mi-CHELLE! You knew it was serious when she dragged out your middle name.

² Another thing I like is that it is only sometimes easy.

³ Though actually my parents gave both their kids middle names that Mean Something. My brother has two great-grandfathers —a German one and a Norwegian one — named Carl (and a great-uncle, now that I think about it, but everyone calls him Bud), so his is Carl, and I share a birthday with my uncle Mike so mine's Michelle. Unless you're slemslempike, in which case it is Montana.