Quote Originally Posted by Telegraph View Post
Those of you who don't have middle names; you're missing out! Also, I'm Catholic. I wasn't aware that you could take a second middle name after confirmation. I suppose mine would've been "Francis," I think, after the patron saint of animals. He was my chosen saint, anyway. For whatever purpose that served, I forget. *thumbs up* Anyhoo...
As far as I'm aware the saint you choose, your confirmation name, does officially become part of your name in the eyes of the church, as an additional middle name.

I'm not sure if it's a universal thing, but it seems to be done in Scotland and Ireland so I'm assuming all Catholics who've made their confirmation may use the saint's name as an additional part of their name.

In doing that, my name is now 6 words long, the longest word being 11 letters. That's why I don't use it fully .

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But concerning middle names as a whole, I think the origin was used for a sign of respect. Since you can only have one first-name, this may be used for a name your parent's like, whilst the second name may be from someone your parents respect.

Of course nowadays it's just tradition to give a child a first name and a middle name, so there's not really any important reason for middle names today.