>
> > Then I went to college, where on a stone tablet, they had inscribed, "Everybody has a first name, a middle initial, and a last name." I felt sorry for a few students, mostly girls, who had no middle name so were given the middle name, NMI.
>
> In my mom's family, none of the women have middle names. They tend to keep their madien names as middle names upon marriage. I really like it now (my name is exactly what people call me - it makes sense), but when I was little, I hated it.
>
> In third grade, my teacher was filling out our forms for standardized tests, and to save time, he went around the room and asked people their middle initials. I knew what he meant, but a lot of my classmates didn't.
> "Jason, what's your middle initial?"
> "I don't have one."
> "Jason, what's your middle name?"
> "Thomas"
> "Ok, then T is your middle initial."
> We went through this for just about the whole class, and when we got to me (at the end of the alphabet) and I said I had no middle initial, I had to then explain that I had no middle name, which confused the teacher no end. He probably asked me what my middle name was 3 or 4 times before he believed me.
>
> My grandmother (with no middle name, just a maiden name in the middle) talks about filling out forms before she got married and putting 'none' in the middle name/middle initial section, then getting mail addressed to "Ruth None Martin". Duh.
>
> Luisa

Thanks for the inspiration! You just gave me a great idea. The next time I fill out a form, I'm going to put "none" in the blank for first name.
I have a first name that I don't use, because every body knows me by my middle name, but they don't have to know that. It should turn my junk mail into real keepsakes. Why didn't I think of that when I was in school!?
Thanks,
Howard