Surnames as Middle Names in England

Abstract

Names used in the middle position of an anthroponym (that is, between the first name and surname) are a relatively recent introduction to England, first substantively occurring in the eighteenth century but only becoming widespread from the nineteenth. Using approximately 34 million full name birth and death records from 1733 to 2024, this study empirically characterises the origin and spread of middle names in England from (as much as it was possible) the point of their initial adoption. In so doing, I chart the development of what is today a commonplace naming custom as it was being established. I show that, when first adopted, middle names were an elite concept, their propagation in England following the reign of the Hanoverian monarchs, who encoded dynastic genealogies in their names—a Germanic noble tradition. Nevertheless, middle naming spread in England not primarily through the use of forenames, but the use of surnames, in the middle position—a stark contrast with royal practice, and one which suggests its essence was being emulated, not its exact nature. This use of surname-middle names as elite status markers declined rapidly in the early 19th century, losing exclusivity as middle names in general became widespread.