1 post tagged “middle name”

What's your middle name?  Is there a story or history behind it?

It's Louis, and yes, I suppose there is a little story there. At birth, it was Lee, a name my mother gave me, she says, "to balance out that horrible last name." It was kind of an allusion to her own middle name, Leona, which is an unfortunate but hereditary name. She was named after an aunt, who was named after her mother (my mom's grandmother), who was in turn named after her mother. So it's kind of the done thing to saddle one unfortunate girl out of each generation with the name—or middle name—Leona. That tradition has thankfully been broken.

Louis, however, comes from my maternal grandfather. When I decided to change my last name, I figured I would no longer need the short middle name for balance. And, you know, there's Jason Lee. In choosing a new one, I wanted something from the family, something with a history that actually meant something. My paternal grandfather was named Hiram Asa, so no help there. Thus, my mom's dad's middle name, the inexplicably frenchified (we have no french heritage whatsoever) Louis.