Left Of The Middle

I have a middle name, but with the exception of my passport, birth cetificate, CV and one time marriage certificate it never really appears anywhere. It is Joseph, which actually is a considerably better name than Darren, but it was the 70s and we had black circles on our purple wallpaper so it could have been worse.

Over here however people have a fascination with their middle names. Specifically the first letter of their middle name. Some local examples..

I go swimming at the Bruce D. Walter pool, attached to the Thomas A. Edison school, built by the mayor Brian P. Stack, in the state of New Jersey governed by John S. Corzine, in a country run by George W. Bush. Harry S Truman was another one, though he had an excuse as in his case his middle name was actually ‘S’. My favourite is this sound guy who appeared on TV the other day – Chris P. Bacon.

Sometimes they like to move the initial around a bit, the US equivalent of Alan Titchmarsh is known as P. Allen Smith, not forgetting C. Thomas Howell and L. Ron Hubbard. This is peculiar behavior.

However, beyond the initials there are some terrific names here. A couple of favourites include local news anchor man Maurice DuBois (pronounced mooreeese, Adrian de la Touche anyone ?), NBC anchor Stone Phillips (Rock Hudon’s cousin?) who I’m sure is every bit as masculine as he wants you to think. However, its the habit of giving surnames as first names that I like the best, it makes you sound tough. Here’s some examples of the TV:

Anderson Cooper
Blake Lewis
Carson Daly
Blair Underwood
Cameron Daddo
Tucker Carlson

Grr. Those are real blokes names. In much the same way that first pet / mothers maiden name gives you your porn star name (in my case, Chewy Daly) I think if you just switch your first and surnames around you end up with your CBS Nightly News with.. anchor name.