Children's Middle Names

When I was a kid, I didn't give much thought to the custom of giving children second names. I did know that mine, Lee, was my grandfather's first name (I was the first grandchild--for both Mother's and Dad's families) and that some of my friends had either a collection of names between their first and last, or some real doozers that they only shared after I'd taken blood oaths of secrecy.

I didn't know that my best friend went by her middle name, Anne, until her wedding day. I nearly fell over when the J. P. asked "Do you, Dorothy Anne, take..." She hated her first name so much, she'd pretended it didn't exist.

Then, when I was pregnant with my first child, first and middle names suddenly became very important. If we had a son, William was the traditional first name in my husband's familyand had been for at least four generations. We automatically went with Richard, my father's name, for the second.

But what would we name a girl?

I liked my mother's name, Esther, but loathed my mother-in-law's name, Bessie. (She did, too, and wasn't particularly happy with its diminutive, Bess.) I'd have been happy to give our daughter her middle name, Irene, but my husband insisted on Bessie or nothing if I chose Esther. He wouldn't even compromise on Elizabeth, of which Bessie is a diminutive--he said it sounded too much like we were aping the royals.

Back to the dictionary of baby names.

The Lord of the Rings was just coming into mainstream consciousness and there were some interesting names that might work. My husband's middle name was Warren, which, with a little rearrangement, could become Arwen. Arwen it was.

But what about a middle name? We went through every name we could think of, but nothing sounded right to either of us. And then I saw Veronica Tennant dance The Sleeping Beauty and thought the name went well with Arwen (the woman being tall, blonde and beautiful didn't hurt, either). Later that evening, I broached the subject of middle names again. He said he'd just been reminded of the Archie comics and what did I think of Veronica, one of Archie's girl friends, as a possible girl's name?

Bingo.

I don't know what we'd have done if we'd had two boys or two girls, but we had a son followed by a daughter two years later. William Richard and Arwen Veronica.