What is everyone doing for middle names with only a single letter?

RootsMagic
,
1

What is everyone doing for middle names when you only know the first letter of the name.
Are you putting R or R.?
Are you putting a period after the letter in your entry or are you just putting the letter?
What is your reason why you are doing what you’re doing?

Rick

2

I don’t know if there is an official rule or not, but I include the period.

My rationale is that the period represents an abbreviation of a middle name that exists and I just don’t know what it is. But there are people sometimes who have a middle initial that is just an initial and which isn’t an abbreviation. The most famous example is probably Harry S Truman who had no middle name, just the S as a middle initial. So if I have anybody like that, I omit the period to indicate that it is just a middle initial and there is no middle name.

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3

If …

  • person’s middle name known and a source lists a middle initial
    • with a period, I add the name with middle initial and period to the tree as an alternate name
    • without a period, I’ve already added the middle name to the primary name, so the source gets attached without additional name effort. Period omission is chalked up to source preparation mistake.
  • person’s middle name unknown, and a source lists a middle initial
    • with a period, I add the middle initial with period to the primary name in the tree
    • without a period, I add the middle initial without period to the primary name in the tree. Future period may be added … see above.
4

I always add a period, because it is the proper way to do so and has been since I was in grade school. All those people on places like Find-A-Grave that do not add the period…they really calm my chowder. I will send edit requests for nothing but that just to be petty!

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5

Agree - with a period I know they actually thought about it and it wasn’t entered in error. :slight_smile:

6

I have an uncle whose first name is J - no period because my grandmother said it’s not an abbreviation. He was called “J(ay)”. As for me, I use a period after the first letter of a second name if I know it’s an abbreviation. Ancestry does not put a period after an initial in the second name when you add a new person from a source (like a census). It must be done manually.

7

Good point – I guess I would adopt this.

Otherwise I would include include Period(s) – there are sometimes people have two middle initials

8

Hubby’s father’s name was M E - that’s it and as it is on his birth certificate - no actual names. I know that I was taught to put the period. However, if a person’s ‘name’ is actually just an initial, I think leaving off the period is appropriate. I unfortunately have been doing both (period and not period).

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Initials on a birth certificate are not uncommon.’ it doesn’t mean there wasn’t really a middle name.

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If the birth certificate says just M E-- that is his legal name–he MIGHT have went by something like Melvin Edward but his legal name was ME-- I had a relative whose parents put Billy Roger on his birth certificate-- and his parents always called him Billy— when he applied for a social security card, he put William Rodger as he assumed that was his real first name–later on in life Social Security told him that there was no such person as William Rodger ---- he had to legally change his name in order to get all his records straightened out…

11

My father’s name was on his birth certificate J D. N0 periods. He is sometimes referred to as Julian which is his dad’s name but all his naval records show his name as J D usually I quotes. He was known as J by everyone

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12

I want to thank everyone for your feedback.

I originally was putting periods at the end and recently stopped doing it.

I think it is better that I start using periods again.

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13

He actually has two names he went by and are both in the legal records - Marvin and Marley Edaniel Jr. Up until recent times names really didn’t mean much. My husband got his social security record under the name Mike even though his birth certificate is Michael.

14

I always add the period. Mostly because I spent many years editing books for commercial & academic publishers (as a side gig) and it will keep me awake at night if I don’t. But also because I sometimes generate a narrative report on someone and it saves that bit of later editing and rewrite.

15

A matter of personal preference. If I have a middle initial only, I don’t use a period in RM or Ancestry to abbreviate it, because I may continue to search online newspaper or internet sources. In my book, however, such names were properly punctuated.

16

I like the structure of adding a period. However, do commonly used genealogy websites use a period after the middle initial? As another post mentioned, Find A Grave does not. Will other websites not find a relative if you use the period? I’ll base my use of the period on more helpful web searches.