this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
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Today I Learned

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 days ago (1 children)

My grandpa's name was Larry. I had always assumed it was short for Lawrence. I just found out recently like 8 years after he died that it wasn't even short for that. Apparently my illiterate great grandparents wanted to name him Larrington (which I'm 90% sure isn't even a first name in the lexicon). Apparently my great grandmother wanted him to grow up to be Larrington the Lawyer. My guess is that was a name of a local law firm she had heard of something because it definitely sounds like a surname that you would hear on a law office advert, (i.e. call Larrington and Mitchell). Turns out they couldn't spell Larrington and just decided to name him Larry for short. So his fucking birth certificate has a nickname on it for a name he wasn't even born as. My mind was fucking blown hearing this.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

My dad's name was the shortened version of a longer name and he said teachers in the prestigious British high school he went to (he went on scholarship, he wasn't rich himself) continually insisted that his name must be the longer version no matter what he tried.

He was also told, "children at this school go to Oxford or Cambridge" by his headmaster when he asked for a letter of recommendation when applying to Sheffield. He got into Sheffield anyway. Eventually got a PhD. Fuck that guy.

[–] [email protected] 84 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There's also Ulysses S. Grant. The "S" was apparently just a mistake on his enrollment at West Point. His birth name was Hiram Ulysses Grant. He tried to switch his first and middle names, but ended up with the initials USG instead of UHG.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ulysses-S-Grant

[–] [email protected] 36 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (4 children)

And then there's the odd case of "Thomas a Becket." Thomas Beket was never called Thomas a Becket in his lifetime. He apparently went by many names, one of which was "Beket," but never "a Becket."

https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2023/research/thomas-a-becket-study/

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Is this the genesis of British "humour"? Thomas, a Becket, even got the name in the time of Shakespeare.

Waiting for somebody to eviscerate me over British history, cause all I know is Monty Python.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 4 days ago (4 children)

I had a friend like this in college. His name was AJ. That's it. Just the letters.

Everyone in the department spent ages trying to guess what it stood for. I managed to glance his ID when we got lunch together once. His name was just AJ. There weren't even periods marking it as an abbreviation.

Still haven't told anyone though

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

Reminds me of the character BJ in M*A*S*H. Named after his parents, Bea and Jay

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Now I want to name a kid Ay-Jay.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Did you call him Aj or A.J?

[–] [email protected] 61 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Homer Jay Simpson Or Homer J. Simpson

If his name is S why is there a period... like an abbreviation.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 days ago (3 children)

People are used to adding periods so they just add it in.

Source: My middle name is a letter.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

S and a dot is just for when you want to abbreviate the S by adding an additional character.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Have an old friend/colleague with the last name Oh, share the same first name, so at work we would always say, John S., John D, John O type of deal, for some reaosn it would keep me wondering if we were really saying Oh or O. For him. (John isn't really the first name, just an example)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I'd tell people my middle name was "S" too if I were a boy middlenamed Sue. How do you do?!

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 days ago (1 children)

J Moore, the Moore in the wildly used Boyer-Moore string search algorithm, has a first name of a single letter, J. It's not an abbreviation.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 days ago

Moore enjoys rock climbing.[6]

This might be the most concise paragraph I've ever seen on Wikipedia!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago
[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 days ago (2 children)

That also reminds me of this one public speaker back in 30 A.D. Jesus H Christ. Apparently the H is just an H. Who woulda thought.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I thought H stood for Harold. As in, "our father, who art in heaven, Harold be thy name..."

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Pretty sure it's Jesus H Roosevelt Christ

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (5 children)

I used to work with a guy that was from China. He only had a first in a last name. He was going to college here and the college required everyone to have a middle initial as part of their login. They just used his last initial as his middle initial.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 days ago (8 children)

Wait does everyone there have a middle name? I'm Dutch and I don't have a middle name. I figured that was quite common also in the English speaking world

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

I don’t have either. Maybe it’s a murican thing

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

My grandfather and father dont have a middle name.

Both Sicilian (Father born in the U.S though)

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (6 children)

Is a middle name mandatory for you?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

What else would your mom call you when she's pissed off?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

I don't know that it's absolutely mandatory but it's definitely pervasive.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I knew that middle names are common in the US but I didn't know it's so deep in the culture

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

I've usually seen NMN used for no middle name.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

What a coincidence. I never knew this despite my penchant for useless trivia but just yesterday at an airport I overheard some high school kids asking each other trivial pursuit questions and this was one. The next day: this post. Uncanny.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago

Harry "Cool S" Truman

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago (2 children)

A friend in high school had a middle name of "J"

[–] [email protected] 60 points 4 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 days ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago

This is exactly where my brain went.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago

Monkey D. Luffy type shit

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