Let's Talk About...Middle Initials

Ok. Do you use your middle initial? Some people do and some people don't. I can see why you would use it to distinguish yourself from all the other "John Smiths" out there. I can see why you would use it to score an email address that would be otherwise taken. Some people use it out of habit. Others use it to sound important. Some just like the way it sounds. And some people don't have a middle name.

But the whole middle initial thing gets complicated. What about hyphenated names? If your name is John Thomas Smith-Jones, do you use John T. Smith-Jones? Or John S. Jones and leave poor Thomas in the dust? Or John T. Jones or John T. Smith? And if you have a hyphenated name and get married and hyphenate your name again, you may end up with the whole alphabet to choose from. And on a practical level, what about the IRS? Or your will? Or a deed? What do you use? Suddenly you have a string of "aka"s to deal with.

But let's think about the sound of a middle initial. Michael J. Fox just wouldn't be the same without the "J." Same with Samuel L. Jackson or Mary J. Blige or William H. Macy. Where would JFK be without the F? "JK" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Sometimes a middle initial just works.

And what about those who make up a middle initial? Why would you do that? It is more common than you think.

Harry S. Truman's whole middle name is actually "S." which stands for nothing except an oblique reference to a family name. Michael J. Fox's middle name is really Andrew but, for reasons best known to Hollywood, he decided to use "J." Ulysses S. Grant? No middle name beginning with "S." J.K. Rowling? Joanne Rowling wanted to use initials as part of her nom de plume to avoid sexism, but has no middle name. She chose "J. K." when she wrote the "Harry Potter" series because she liked it, and the rest is history.

Closer to home, my husband has no middle name. When we created our wedding invitation, it just didn't seem balanced to announce the wedding of "Elise Suzanne Rickenbach" to just "Grant Marylander." So, he chose Michael for a middle name just to balance the invitation. Go figure. We were young.

Me? I have always used my middle initial. I think it started when I was a kid and thought, "I like my middle name; I want to use it." Of course, using the whole middle name got cumbersome so an initial would have to do. And it just stuck. Besides, I thought, "S" is a great letter. My sister's name starts with "S." And sometimes I just call her "S." And I wanted to be like my older sister.

Here's the thing. Somehow my middle initial was inadvertently dropped when I started writing for the Courier. I hereby reclaim it.

Use your initials or not, identity can be a tricky thing.