Embarrassing Middle Name

Lister: “To the lease holder of Kryten 2X4B 523P.” That’s your full name?

Kryten: Yes, but personally I don’t much like the 2X4B. I think it’s a jerky middle name. Still, it could be worse. I once knew an android whose middle name was 2Q4B. Poor sucker!

— Red Dwarf, "The Last Day"

No matter the genre, some characters have a tendency to have one or more middle names they keep a deep, dark secret from everybody.

Also can apply when a newlywed woman appends her husband's name to her own, creating a funny combination.

Often comes out when a character's mother, wife, or other significant figure launches into a Full-Name Ultimatum. It can also be used as a retort to "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name.

Similar to, but easier to hide than, the Embarrassing First Name and the Embarrassing Last Name. Could be a component of an Unfortunate Name. See also Tomboyish Name.

Once the name is revealed, another character often repeats it immediately after. Usually in a humorously questioning tone.

There are examples of this in Real Life — some cultures believe that to publicly reveal the name of their newborn child will curse them (or attract unwanted infernal attention); their solution is to give the child a 'placeholder' name that is purely humorous or inappropriate, and allow them to take their 'real' name when they reach a certain age.

It's also common in some cultures for infants to be named in honor of ancestors (typically grandparents) or as part of a multi-generational naming tradition. This can result in embarrassment as names become unfashionable or strongly associated with a certain gender over time (e.g., Meredith, Hilary, Ashley). May also lead to a Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?. Contrast with Middle Name Basis. May overlap with Wacky Americans Have Wacky Names.

noreallife

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• William B. Baxter, a minor character in Eureka Seven:
  "Don't ask what the "B" stands for; it's an embarrassing name my father came up with when he was drunk."
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi has the powerful, legendary, Noble Demon vampire Evangeline A. K. McDowell. According to Albireo "Colonel Sanders" Imma, The K stands for Kitty. Of course, it actually stands for Katherine.
• It's a title rather than a name, and it only appears in the novels, but Lina Inverse, star of Slayers, has the official Wizard Guild title of "Lina the Pink Sorceress". Seeing as how she's a tomboyish Chaotic Neutral Tsundere, this embarrasses the hell out of her.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Marik Ishtar's middle name, according to The Abridged Series, is Sebastian.

Comic Books

• The Flash: Wally West's full name is Wallace Rudolph West. Probably due to the fact that it's his father's first name, and his dad was kind of a dick who cheated on his wife constantly and wasn't terrifically supportive of his son.
• Iron Man is a bit defensive about his middle name.
  Computer: Identity confirmed: Anthony Edward Stark.
  Spider-Man: Anthony Edward Stark?
  Iron Man: You got a problem with that?
  Spider-Man: Nosir.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Sonic's middle name is Maurice. His parents call him by that name, but he dislikes it.

Comic Strips

• In Bloom County, Steve Dallas' middle name is revealed to be Milhouse, the same as former president Richard Nixon. However, he was called "Steven R. Dallas" at other points in the strip.
• Several characters in Big Nate have these: Francis' middle name is "Butthurst", Dee Dee's is "Dorcas", and Teddy's is the square root symbol (his parents are mathematicians). The titular character averts this by not having a middle name at all, though when he tries to give himself one, his friends agree that most of his choices would qualify as this trope.

Fan Works

• Sirius Valentine Black from the Danger Verse.
• Mephisto Marley in Foundations. In his archaic pureblood family, it's tradition that the second child gets the mother's first name as their middle name. Mephisto is the second child. His mother's name is Florence. At one point, Harry calls him "Flo" as revenge for him calling Harry "Wonder Boy" all the time.
• DARCUS TAYLOR YAGAMI from Lightand Dark The Adventures Of Dark Yagami. Also Light Melville Yagami.
• Maya Fey of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Idiot universe is taunted for her middle name "Gilligan" every time she appears in court. Her responses vary wildly throughout the series dependent on how many burgers she's eaten, or whether her voice actor was a man or a woman that day.
• Three examples in the Hunger Games fanfiction Some Semblance of Meaning: Lark's middle name is revealed to be Asphodel (which his mother apparently thought sounded manly at the time). Vale's middle name is Chastity, while Obsidian's is Agamemnon. (The latter is actually inverted, in that Obsidian doesn't seem to understand why Vale thinks his middle name ought to embarrass him at all. He does find her middle name pretty snicker-worthy, though.)
• Iron Cross recipient Waffen-SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Joachim Wilbur Hoch from the Uplifted series made known in the third story.
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic The Wonder Years, Captain Rainbow is not happy that her name plaque includes her middle name Miriam.
• 15 year old Don Eppes in NUMB3RS Drabble What's In A Name is horrified to find out his middle name is Moonchild.
• Played with in Origin Story, where Alexandra Harris's middle name — since she is a magically created psychic cross-gender Kryptionian clone of Xander Harris — is "Lavelle", just like Xander himself. She still finds it embarrassing, but everyone else shrugs it off because its not that bad a name if you're female. Which she is.
• Agreement and Disputation: Holmes gives up the idea of asking Watson about his middle initial when he remembers he would have to give his own middle name in turn. He never states what it is, only that any court in the land would condemn his parents for giving it to a vulnerable child.
• In Silence Breaks the Heart Pansy's middle name, Elladora, is not to be mentioned if one likes their... equipment intact.
• In Ride-Along Daphne is annoyed by jokes regarding her middle name, Queenie.
• Danny Phantom: Stranded: In Snowed, Jack and Maddie cringe at the mention of their middle names. Jack never forgave his mother for the middle name "Horace" and Maddie is bitter at her mother for the middle name "Agnes".
• Nero's full name in The Silver Raven is Nero Claudius Clawthorne. Edric and Emira laugh their asses off when they hear it.
  Edric: PFFT! I still can't believe your middle name's Claudius!
• In The Veil James' middle name is Ashley and Sirius never misses a chance to tease him about it.

Film — Animated

• In Antz: Z tells Princess Bala "Trouble is my middle name... actually, my middle name is Marion, but I don't want you spreading that around."^note  The line itself is a Shout-Out to Z's voice actor Woody Allen's '70s movie.
• In Flushed Away, Spike announces that Danger is his middle name.
  Whitey: I thought it was "Leslie".
• In The Boss Baby, the name of the main/narrator character is Timothy Leslie Templeton. Throughout most of the film, the title character is known as simply that, "the Boss Baby." However, when he decides to give up his boss baby role and become Tim's real brother, he is given the name Theodore Lindsey Templeton, which gets a little chuckle out of Tim.

Film — Live-Action

• In Eighteen Again, Jack, who has switched bodies with his 18-year-old grandson David, boasts in a college lecture hall that he knows the true story behind Harry S. Truman claiming to have no real middle name (in reality, Truman's parents chose "S" as his middle initial to please both of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. The "S" did not stand for anything, a common practice among the Scots-Irish). Jack, who knew Truman personally, says Truman told him the embarrassing truth: that he was named after a Russian uncle, Sergei, but due to anti-Russian sentiment in the U.S.A. at the time, he cooked up the "two grandfathers" story on the spot.
• Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein) does this with the entire royal family, giving them each an embarrassing (or rather, disarmingly prosaic) antepenultimate name. For example, the crown prince is "Christopher Rupert Windemere Vladimir Carl Alexander Francois Reginald Lancelot Herman Gregory James."
  • Which makes one wonder...who would torture a child with a middle name like Windemere?
  • His parents have "Sidney" and "Maisie" as their respective embarrassing names. The king actually refers to the queen as "Maisie" when they are alone, despite the fact that it's unusual, likely as a term of endearment.
• A different take on this trope is in Edge of Tomorrow. William Cage tells Rita Vrataski her middle name which he got in a past "Groundhog Day" Loop. Rita is a hardcore Action Girl who refuses to connect with anyone because (having been stuck in her own time-loop in the past) she knows the pain of having a friend die on you again and again. She tells Cage he got it wrong and suggests she told him the wrong name just to shut him up. Later as Rita dies yet again in his arms, she tells Cage her actual middle name is Rose.
• In Godmothered, for some reason, Eleanor is embarrassed that her middle name is "Fay." This is Played for Laughs, since her last name "Bloomingbottom" should be much more embarrassing.
• In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, you learn Dumbledore's full name, all of which are Meaningful Names: Albus ("white") Percival (a knight of the Round Table) Wulfric (a famous healer in the 11th century) Brian ("exalted; high-minded") Dumbledore (Old English for "bumblebee"). In the movie, he proudly rattles off his name until "Brian" comes up, which he mutters, picking up the volume for his surname.
• Mel Brooks' character in High Anxiety is renowned psychologist Dr. Richard H. Thorndyke. The "H" stands for "Harpo."
• In House Party, Kid asks Sydney what her middle name is. She says it's LaToya, obviously not liking the name much. Kid then says, "'Sydney'... that's a nice name."
• In Meet the Parents, Pam's middle name is Martha, which was fine until she got engaged to Gaylord Focker. However, she's not embarassed by that and in the sequel Meet the Fockers openly declares she's going to be taking his surname.
• In Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest, Roger Thornhill's middle initial is O, making his initials R.O.T. Doesn't stop him from having his matchbooks monogrammed, though.
  • A subversion, actually, as Roger explains that the O doesn't stand for anything, he just added it so it looked like he had a middle name.
• In the film/play/now a film again The Producers, Adolf Hitler's middle name is revealed to be Elizabeth. ("Not many people know it, but ze Fuhrer vass descended from a long line of English kveens.") Coincidentally, director and English (drag)queen Roger DeBris in the same movie shares this middle name.
• Discussed in Star Trek (2009), as noted below under Live-Action TV.
• Professor Robert Sutwell from Beach Party is embarrassed of his middle name, Orville.
• In The Getting of Wisdom, the protagonist Laura Rambotham's middle name is Tweedle. Right from the start, the other girls at the boarding school have a field day taking the piss out of said middle name, often by calling Laura insulting nicknames such as "Tweedledum".
• Borat Subsequent Moviefilm reveals that Borat's full name is Borat Margaret Sagdiyev.

Literature

• It's not presented as being necessarily embarrassing since she does admit to it without pause, but in The Babysitters Club, Dawn's middle name is Read. Absolutely no explanation for where her parents came up with that one is ever offered.
• In Craig Shaw Gardner's Bride of the Slime Monster when Louie questions Roger's middle name, Aloysius, he states that it's a "family name" and "never used".
• Holden's kid sister Phoebe in The Catcher in the Rye hates her middle name "Josephine" and is always trying to come up with a new middle name.
• In Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, Eddie Dean's middle name is Cantor. He asks Jake not to spread it around.
• Nelson Demille's Deadpan Snarker cop John Corey is embarrassed by his middle name: Aloysius, insisting that it is, in fact: "Danger."
• In the Discworld novel Carpe Jugulum, thanks to the naming being performed by a flustered and absent-minded Omnian priest, Magrat's daughter is accidentally named Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre. (Her mother was trying to make sure he said "Margaret" rather than "Magrat".)
  • The same novel had a passing reference to a former ruler of Lancre called King My God He's Heavy the First, and a man called James What The Hell's That Cow Doing In Here Poorchick (or Moocow Poorchick to his friends). The culture has a rule that whatever is actually said at the naming ceremony must become their permanent, official name, with no allowance for error or provision to change it.
  • There's also One Man Bucket, or to give him his full name, One Man Throwing A Bucket Of Water Over Two Dogs. His tribe names children after the first thing the mother sees when she looks out of the tent after the birth. Apparently his twin, born a few minutes earlier, 'would have given his right arm to have been called Two Dogs Fighting' (a reference to an ancient American joke.)
  • Also, Miss Dearheart's full name is Adora Belle Dearheart. Really, it's little wonder that her fiance calls her 'Spike'.
• The protagonist of The Fools in Town Are On Our Side by Ross Thomas hates his middle name of Clarence. So much that he actually prefers (barely) his first name: Lucifer.
• In the Franny K. Stein book The Fran That Time Forgot, Franny K. Stein is embarrassed by her middle name being Kissypie, which was apparently an Affectionate Nickname her father gave to her mother when they were dating. She time-travels back to when she was born and gets the idea from her infant self to change her middle name to Kaboom, which still subjects her to mockery. After an encounter with her evil teenage future self, she decides to stop being upset about her middle name and embraces it.
• Ghost Twins: In book 3, The Mystery on Walrus Mountain, the boy staying at the twins' old house-turned-vacation home is Noah Grindelwald French. His middle name is from the ski town in Switzerland where his parents met, and Noah himself says that their choice is responsible for "Causing me a lifetime of grief".
• In one Ghosts of Fear Street book (Caution—Aliens At Work), the protagonist temporarily gains Mind Reading abilities. He jokes to his best friend that now he'll finally be able to figure out her middle name. Naturally, her immediate thought is Don't think Priscilla, don't think Priscilla!
• Good Omens gave us a young girl named Pippin Galadriel Moonchild, who is perfectly happy to flatten anyone who doesn't call her Pepper.
• Nymphadora Tonks from the Harry Potter novels doesn't like it when people use her first name and is thus only called "Tonks". When a fan asked J.K. Rowling why Tonks doesn't use her middle name instead of her first, the author revealed that Tonks' middle name is "Vulpecula", in keeping with the Black family tradition of naming children after constellations, stars and other heavenly phenomena.
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was stuck with a slew of these in the original Land of Oz novels, as he explains to Princess Ozma in this quotation from "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz":
  "That is true," answered the little Wizard; "therefore it will give me pleasure to explain my connection with your country. In the first place, I must tell you that I was born in Omaha, and my father, who was a politician, named me Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, Diggs being the last name because he could think of no more to go before it. Taken altogether, it was a dreadfully long name to weigh down a poor innocent child, and one of the hardest lessons I ever learned was to remember my own name. When I grew up I just called myself O. Z., because the other initials were P-I-N-H-E-A-D; and that spelled 'pinhead,' which was a reflection on my intelligence."
• David Blessing Brown, the dog in Living Alone by Stella Benson
  Certainly other dogs did not care for him. David said that they had found out that his second name was Blessing, and that they laughed at him for it.
• Lord Peter Wimsey's middle name is Death, though he doesn't seem particularly embarrassed by it; in Murder Must Advertise, he even uses it as an alias.
• In The McGurk Organization series by author E. W. Hildick, the character Jack P. McGurk's middle name is outed as being Perseverance.
• In Patricia A. McKillip's "The Kelpie", Emma and Ned, discussing how to know each other better, confide their middle names to each other.
• Dian Curtis Regan's My Zombie Valentine has twelve-year-old Joseph "Joey" Milford Ocean as its main character. Joey's younger sister takes great pleasure in reminding him that "Milford" was their grandparent's dog, who died the night Joey was born, a fact which greatly annoys him.
• Polly in The Old-Girl Network has the middle name Esther, which doesn't sound embarrassing... until you find out that Polly's father gave her that middle name after a hippie friend named his daughter Silke, and you try saying Polly's name fast.
• Please Don't Tell My Parents You Believe Her reveals that Penny's middle name is literally "Justice", which her antihero-to-villainous companions find hilarious.
• Discussed in Septimus Heap, where Merrin Meredith takes on a pseudonym because he's embarrassed of the "Meredith" part in his name.
• In The Sherwood Ring, Peaceable Sherwood.
• In the YA novel Soul Beach by Kate Harrison, the main character's middle name is Florence because her parents conceived her in an Italian hotel on their wedding anniversary. It's not as bad as her older sister's middle name, which is London. It could've been worse, though, because her elder sister's middle name was supposed to be 'Shepherd's Bush', but apparently her "mother knew that would be a step too far."
• In Species Imperative: Survival, the main character typically goes by "Mac". When dealing with an alien species that places honor on long names, she is forced to intro herself fully as "Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor" — in front of her best friend, who nearly bursts out laughing.
• Tai Pan: Dirk Struan is deeply unsettled when a man he has never met addresses him by his full name, which he has taken great pains to conceal. Apparently "Lachlan" is just that embarrassing.
• In Terra Ignota, Sniper is a worldwide known and beloved celebrity, winner of several Olympic medals and secretly the most dangerous assassin of the 25th century. His full name is also Ojiro Cardigan Sniper. Mycroft comments how much of a closely kept secret it is that one of the most formidable people on the planet goes by Cardigan or just Cardie at home.
• In the THIRDS Series, the main character is a law enforcement agent called Dexter Justice Daley.
• Tunnel in the Sky has Dr. Jesse Evelyn Ramsbotham, saddled with a complete Gender-Blender Name package of an Embarrassing First Name and an Embarrassing Middle Name. The text speculates he may have been an athlete rather then a scientist had he a pair of masculine names.
• P. G. Wodehouse was very fond of embarrassing names, first, middle, or otherwise.
  • Bertie Wooster's middle name was Wilberforce (his father won money on a horse named Wilberforce), which seemed to cause him varying levels of discomfort depending on his mood.
  • A character called Mr. Trotter avoids knighthood for fear of having his first name, Lemuel exposed to public view. He can't use his middle name either, because it's Gengulphus.
  • Bertie's uncle, Tom Trotter's middle name is Portarlington.
  • In one of his early school stories, a character's middle name is Mowbray, which he spends "much time in concealing".
• Nita Callahan of the Young Wizards series inexplicably hates her middle name, Louise. Carmela, on the other hand, doesn't mind her own middle name ("Emeda") at all, despite the incredibly weird story behind it.
• Perry Rhodan very occasionally brings this up with long-running mostly supporting character Homer G. Adams (financial genius and first-generation human immortal cast member — he actually does go back all the way to the first issues still set in the 1970s), who's not particularly fond of his middle name Gershwin as we for example find out on one occasion during the Andromeda arc when he meets a duplicate of his that has chosen to adopt just that name for himself. Then the subject rarely ever comes up again...until, many arcs and in-universe well over a thousand years later, shady alien ambassador Sotho Tal Ker (who will become a recurring character and foil for pretty much everyone at some time or other, so the irritation gets to last this time around) latches onto him and keeps insistently calling him "Gershwin" by way of demonstrating what good friends they are.

Live-Action TV

• On The Dick Van Dyke Show, Ritchie's middle name is revealed to be, for convoluted reasons, Rosebud, which stands for Robert Oscar Sam Edward Benjamin Ulysses David.
• Friends: Chandler's middle name is Muriel. This is revealed after eight years of the show establishing that Chandler suffers from both an Embarrassing First Name and surname. There was a reason he went around telling everyone who asked that the 'M' was a letter that stood for nothing.
  Ross: Chandler Muriel Bing. Boy, your parents never even gave you a chance, did they?
• The Class (2006): Richard Brittany Velch
• Twice on Laverne & Shirley, Shirley Feeny was embarrassed to reveal that her middle name was Willamina.
• Leonard Hofstadter from The Big Bang Theory has the middle name Leakey, after famous archaeologist Louis Leakey. It's not related to his history of bedwetting, as Sheldon is eager to note.
• Arnold J. Rimmer in Red Dwarf claims his middle name is Jonathan; it is actually Judas. Kryten the android also considers his own middle name (2X4B) to be a "jerky" middle name, although he claims to know a "poor sucker" with an even worse one: 2Q4B.
• Austin Moon's middle name on Austin & Ally is Monica.
• Drew Carey middle name in The Drew Carey Show is Allison. (Also the actor's real middle name)
  Mimi: Wow, all three of your names are girls' names!
• Geoffrey, the butler on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, has the unfortunate middle name of Barbara.
• Bizaardvark: Bernie Shotz's middle name is Miriam.
• The characters from UK Sitcom Bottom have embarrassing names as it is - Richie Richard and Eddie Hitler - but in a possible nod to The Producers, Eddie's full name is Edward Elizabeth Hitler. (Also a subversion, in that he finds his middle name more embarrassing.)
• Kurt from Glee once signed his name "Kurt Elizabeth Hummel" though it's unclear whether or not this is a legit embarrassing middle name or just one he's taken on himself and actually likes.
  • Perhaps a reference to The Producers, above.
• On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xander's middle name is Lavelle. As if he wasn't the Butt-Monkey without that. (Word of God says that it was one of his maternal uncle's first names, which doesn't make it any better for Xander at all.)
• Sean Garrity's middle name on Rescue Me is Leslie.
• On Grey's Anatomy, Callie's middle name is Iphigenia.
  • And her first name is really Calliope. At least her parents were consistent in their love for classic, mythological Greek names.
• Happy Endings: Penny's full name was revealed to be Penelope Aziz Hartz.
  • Additionally, her best friend Max's full name is revealed to be Maximum Herbert Blum.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000's Dr. Forrester's full name was Clayton Deborah Susan Forrester. Of course, his mother had really wanted him to be a girl...
  • His daughter Kinga is given the middle name of "Clayton" after her father.
• Only Fools and Horses:
  • Rodney Charlton Trotter. At his wedding, the audience can't stop laughing at it so it ends up being omitted from Cassandra's vows. Made all the more embarrassing by the fact that, despite Rodney's insistence that his middle name was inspired by Charlton Heston, it actually came about because his mother Joannie was a fan of Charlton Athletic F.C.
  • Boycie's middle name is revealed to be Aubrey, and he says that his father always used to call him by it. For some reason, in the Spin-Off The Green Green Grass, it's treated as though it were his first name (although this is rather inconsistent).
  • Damien's middle name is Derek, making his initials DDT, the same as a well-known insecticide. Subverted, since Uncle Albert points out straight away the effect this would have on Damien's initials, but Del and Raquel don't care about it.
    Del Boy: Well, there'll be no flies on him, then, will there?
• On 8 Simple Rules, Cate's middle initial of S was revealed by her father not to stand for "Stacey," but "Stinky."
• James Tiberius Kirk from Star Trek.
  • Though in the second pilot, Kirk's middle initial is given as 'R'. One might speculate that his birth name is so embarrassing that he changed it to "Tiberius". The "Tiberius" enters the Canon from the animated series. This actually started as a joke during the Q & A at a convention. (Dammit, Jim, I was THERE.) When asked, "What does the T stand for?", Majel Barrett wisecracked "Tiberius", and when we all groaned, retorted, "Would you prefer Theobald?"
  • William Tiberius Rice was the title character of Roddenberry's previous series The Lieutenant.
  • Lampshaded in the pre-boot.
    George: What're we gonna call him?
    Winona: We could name him after your father.
    George: Tiberius? You kiddin' me? No, that's the worst!
  • One of the Expanded Universe novels ran with the Greco-Roman emperor theme by giving Kirk's nephews (the deceased ones mentioned in "Operation — Annihilate!") the names Alexander and Julius. The Expanded Universe has also suggested that this is a tradition with a long history in Kirk's family — the Star Trek: Enterprise Relaunch novels have a Samuel Kirk who is in a relationship with a Valeria Williams whose family have this tradition. This isn't necessarily contradicted by the novel Home is the Hunter giving an earlier example on the Kirk side; a World War II pilot named John Claudius Kirk.
• Will Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation hates his middle name. In a bit of a subversion though he has the rather conventional middle name of "Thomas."
  • Another subversion occurs in "Second Chances" where a transporter double of Riker eventually decidces to use the name Thomas as he preferred it.
• Deep Space 9 - Captain Sisko's father reveals his son's full name to be Benjamin Lafayette Sisko in one episode, and the retired head of Cardassian intelligence reveals Julian Bashir's middle name to be Subatoi.
  • In a weird related Real Life semi-example, Russell Davies didn't have a middle name, but he decided to take a middle initial as to avoid being confused for another Russell Davies in television. It was only after he started becoming established that people kept going "Oh! Like James T Kirk!" Then he became embarrassed.
• In Degrassi: The Next Generation: The Next Generation, J.T. Yorke's full name is James Tiberius Yorke.
• The reveal of Ted's on How I Met Your Mother, via Full-Name Ultimatum, is Double Subverted. Barney calls him "Ted Vivian Mosby!", but is quickly told that's not his name. When his mother calls him later, though, her first words are "Ted Evelyn Mosby!"
  • Robin Charles Scherbatsky, Jr. Her father wanted her to be a boy and named her after himself.
  • Marvin "Wait-for-it" Eriksen.
• In Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Terry goes to church in order to eavesdrop on his best friend Bob's embarrassing middle name, which he'd been trying to learn since he was a child. The middle name turns out to be Scarborough, after where he was conceived.
  • Leading Terry to wonder how Bob's parents could be so sure of this. "Did they only have it away on their holidays, then?" (It was where his father was stationed at the end of the war. "It's a good job he wasn't stationed in Barrow-in-Furness!")
• Polly from Major Dad, whose middle name turned out to be Esther. (Fine by itself, but Polly Esther...)
• Emma Winifred Keane from The Bill.
• Pierce's full name is revealed to be "Piercinald Anastasia Hawthorne" via a Full-Name Ultimatum by his father Cornelius in Community.
• Albert Ladysmith Steptoe of Steptoe and Son is a bit of a subversion on the grounds that it isn’t the most embarrassing bit of data – or lack thereof – on his birth certificate…
  Harold: Father[’s details] – I don’t believe it… – unknown‼ My father’s a bast…!
  • He was named after a battle in the Boer War.
  • He also lied about his age, even to his close family.
• Doctor Who Expanded Universe character Bernice Surprise Summerfield. So named by her parents because her conception was, erm, a surprise.
  • Not to mention Dorothy Gale McShane, who might pitch some homemade explosives your way if you call her anything but 'Ace'. Her mother's favorite movie was The Wizard of Oz, as you might have guessed. Not like that's an excuse.
• On The Honeymooners, Ralph's best buddy is Edward Lilywhite Norton.
• Out of This World (1987): Troy Garland, alien visitor from Antareus, has the same middle name as his daughter: Ethel. (Though this may just be a riff on Donna's use of the Full-Name Ultimatum as a catchphrase)
• On 3rd Rock from the Sun, Don, trying to convince Sally of something, declared "I'm Don Leslie Orville... and, okay, telling you my middle name probably did not really help my case."
• That '70s Show: Jackie Burkhart's middle name is Beulah, which she tries to keep in secret.
• That '90s Show: Eric calls his daughter "Leia Tattooine Foreman."
  Donna: Her middle name is Ann.
  Eric: I never agreed to that.
• In the wedding episode of Dharma & Greg (to be more precise, the second wedding episode, as they were actually married on their first date in episode 1), it is revealed at the altar that Dharma Finklestein's middle name is "Freedom". This fits her hippie parents and she does not find it embarrassing. Gregory Clifford Montgomery, however, is mortified, and his own wife can't stifle a giggle.
  • This leads to a funny scene later when they flee their own wedding reception, eventually collapsing in a heap together with Greg sighing "Oh, Freedom!" and Dharma snickering "Oh, Clifford".
• Scrubs has several.
  • Percival Ulysses Cox.
  • While we're at it, Sam Perry Gilligan Dorian.
  • Turk's middle name is Duncan. It's embarrassing only because JD keeps telling people it's because his dad loved donuts.
  • Jennifer Dylan Cox probably deserves a mention as well. Although "Little J.D." herself is too young to be embarrassed by anything during the show, her father Dr. Cox is driven absolutely up the wall that his non-wife chose to name their daughter after John "J.D." Dorian. (This was intentional.)
• Special mention must go to Geraldine Granger, the titular character of the British sitcom The Vicar of Dibley, who has revealed her full name in two episodes, and qualified for both of these tropes. First, she confessed that her real first name was Boadicea. In the final episode, this was ignored and her full name was given as Geraldine Julie Andrews Dick Van Dyke Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Chim Chiminey Chim Chiminey Chim Chim Cher-ee Granger. Her mother was both a big Mary Poppins fan, and quite insane.
• On an episode of Family Matters, Waldo amuses himself throughout the whole episode imagining funny names for (then) Ivana Trump, ending up with her divorcing Donald Trump and marrying, in order, Neil Diamond, Jack Nicklaus, and Ron Darling, coming to the conclusion her name would then be Ivana Diamond Nicklaus Darling.
  • A contender for embarrassing middle name himself, Waldo's full name is Waldo Geraldo Faldo.
  • Or Carl Otis Winslow.
• Subverted right in the middle of a The Two Ronnies sketch about people with embarrassing names:
  Ronnie B: I knew a girl named Virginia Randy once. Dreadful business. She married a chap named Henry Drawers, so now she's -
  Ronnie C: Don't tell me... I can see it coming.
  Ronnie B: Lady Fosgrove.
  Ronnie C: Oh.
• On an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Tony Slattery was assigned "angry about his middle name" as his problem for the Bartender game and remarked, "I am, actually, it's Declan."
  • In an episode of the US version, one of the lines from Scenes From A Hat was "Embarrassing Secrets About Our Host, Drew Carey". Ryan Styles walks on and says "What kind of a middle name is 'Alison'?" As noted above and below, this really is Drew's middle name.
• In one episode of The Nanny, Fran and Maxwell are talking about Andrew Lloyd Webber: ^note This one is false because Lloyd Webber is actually a double-barreled surname.
  Fran: Mr. Sheffield, the only thing that Andrew Lloyd Webber has that you don't is a middle name.
  Maxwell: I've got a middle name.
  Fran: Well, there you are! What is it?
  Maxwell: Beverly.
  Fran: Moving on...
  • Chastity-Claire Babcock.
• Dwayne Florenz Schneider, of One Day at a Time.
• In an episode of Hey Dude!, Ted's middle name is revealed to be Aloysius.
• In Frasier, Frasier's son is Frederick Gaylord Crane.
• Dr. Guy Valerie Secretan from Green Wing.
• On 30 Rock, Kenneth Parcel's middle name is Ellen. A feminine middle name is one of the things Jack notes they share (his happens to be Francis)
• In Zoey 101, Chase is embarrassed that his middle name is "Bartholemew".
  Chase: Hey, 'normal' is my middle name. Actually, it's Bartholemew. Don't tell people.
• Bones:
  • Angela Pearly-Gates Montenegro; for added embarrassment, her middle name is revealed in the middle of a wedding that doesn't quite go off.
  • And then, during her next wedding, it's revealed that this isn't her real name — actually it's even more embarrassing. She was born Pookie Noodlin Pearly-Gates Gibbons.
  • Pearly-Gates is also the name of the favorite guitar of Billy Gibbons, Angela's father.
  • And in an example where it isn't the person himself who's embarrassed by his middle name, Angela and Hodgins name their son Michael Staccato Vincent Hodgins (Michael is the name they had chosen beforehand, Staccato is the name Angela's aforementioned father wanted them to use, and Vincent is for the intern who had died in the previous episode), but only ever refer to him as Michael Vincent. He's still too young to have voiced an opinion about it himself.
• Ashes to Ashes (2008): According to the official website, Raymond Milton Carling.
• On A Different World Dwayne Wayne's middle name is Cleophus, to his regret and Whitley Gilbert-Wayne's amusement.
• A M*A*S*H episode has Hawkeye and Trapper crack up when they learn Frank Burns' is "Marion".
  • "Frank" is actually short for "Franklin" - to this day a few unfortunate boys are still named after the Giant Rodent.
• "Eurydice Colette Clytemnestra Dido Bathsheba Rabelais Patricia Cocteau ...Stone" is Patsy's full name in Absolutely Fabulous
• Hannah Montana: Jackson Rod Stewart. Who, of course, is the show's Butt-Monkey.
• Myka O. Bering of Warehouse 13 has a middle name so embarrassing that the initial is revealed considerably before the full name. It's Ophelia.
  Pete: Can Ophelia boobies?
• Better Off Ted has Theodore Margaret Crisp. He's very insistent that it's pronounced "Mar-Ja-RAY".
• NCIS:
  • Leroy Jethro Gibbs... I dare you to make fun of it to his face, though. Of course, he seems to go on a Middle Name Basis, so he clearly doesn't find it embarassing.
  • Timothy Farragut McGee. Yes, the navy brat is named after the Farragut-class of destroyers.
• In Boy Meets World, Topanga's middle name is apparently so embarrassing she won't even reveal it. As another character points out, "Your first name is Topanga! How bad could your middle name be?" But she still won't tell. (That said, she was preoccupied with Cory speaking with their professor who recently hit on her and made her feel uncomfortable, so her answer was also an excuse to avoid talking with the others).
  • In the first season she also had an older sister: Nebula Stop-the-war Lawrence.
• Parker Rooney from Liv and Maddie knows how Topanga feels - his is so embarrassing that a) Karen uses revealing it to his best friend as a way of punishing him and b) he refuses to let the TV audience hear it.
• Cheers
  • Woody's middle name is, rather improbably, Tiberius. He seems to think Kelly should be embarrassed by her middle name, which is Susan; it's not 100% clear if she is.
  • We never learn Sam's middle name, but whatever it is, he is extremely quick to shut down any possible discussion about it.
  • Carla's mother insists that Carla follow an old family tradition of naming one of her sons with her father's first name and her mother's maiden name - which in Carla's case would be Benito Mussolini Tortelli. Her son Gino agrees to change his name legally but keeps "Gino" as his commonly used name.
• In Happy Days the Fonz's full name is Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli. If Potsie sniggers at your middle name, it must be pretty bad.
• On Fringe, Lincoln Lee's middle name is Tyrone (in honor of his grandfather), and he hides it from Olivia. Olivia finds it out by asking Lincoln's Alternate Universe counterpart, who doesn't think it's a big deal.
• On F Troop, Trooper Dobbs full name was Hannibal Shirley Dobbs.
• On Coronation Street, Liam Connor's middle name was 'Barrington'
• Night Court's own live-in lecher Dan Fielding kept his name secret until an episode in which he helped deliver a baby. The grateful mother named her son with Fielding's middle name: Reinhold. Likely a playful dig at someone. When Judge Stone leaves his chambers, he quietly says, "Reinhold!" and tries not to laugh. Cue producer Reinhold Weege's name coming up immediately as the credits roll.
• Benson has Clayton Runnymede Endicott III, who is sensitive about his middle name because when he was in school, a bully called him "Runnynose".
• In one episode of Rizzoli & Isles, we find out that Jane Rizzoli's middle name is 'Clementine'.
• Suburgatory has Dahlia Oprah Royce. Her mother was in an all-black sorority.
• CSI: NY: We learn in "Near Death" that Mac Taylor's middle name is 'Llewellyn' and that one of his old partners used to rib him about it incessantly. His current partner's reaction:
  Jo: Mac Llewellyn Taylor?? Good Lord.
• John Hamish Watson in Sherlock is embarrassed by his middle name and it takes Sherlock several guesses before he eventually looks up John's birth certificate to find it. It becomes a plot point when a client knows his middle name.
• John Reginald Kennex in Almost Human is so-named because his dad was a big fan of Elton John. He reveals it to a hostage as a way of providing her with moral support but is overheard by Dorian, who naturally proceeds to take the utter piss.
• The Nashville episode "That's Me Without You" reveals that Scarlett O'Connor's middle name is Blue Sky. Figures.
• Saved by the Bell reveals that Jessie Spano's middle name is Myrtle.
• On The Thundermans, Max's full name is revealed to be Maximus Octavius Thunderman in the episode "Winter Thunderland." When Hank and Barb demand that Max apologize to Nora for giving her an empty box as a Christmas present, Max replies, "Only if you apologize for my middle name!" To Max's surprise, his parents actually do say they're sorry, although he then still refuses to apologize to Nora.
• On Another Period, the Bellacourt daughters have some doozies. To wit:
  • Lillian Abigail Hitler Schmemmerhorn-Fish
  • Beatrice Tiffani Amber [1] Downsy
  • Hortense Jefferson Library Bellacourt
• Space: Above and Beyond: Colonel T.C. McQueen never goes by any other name than "Colonel" or "Sir", to cover up the fact that T.C. stands for Tyrus Cassius. It even becomes a plot point, when the otherwise unflappable Colonel refuses to give his real name to a police interrogator.
• Phil Miller's middle name on The Last Man on Earth is Tandy. After another Phil Miller arrives, the original Phil has to go by Tandy to distinguish the two. Even after the other Phil dies, Tandy still goes by that name. It's later revealed that the other Phil had a middle name that he kept secret - Stacy.
• In Jake and the Fatman, J.L. McCabe's full name is Jason Lochenbar McCabe. Small wonder he prefers 'J.L.', or even 'Fatman'.
• Parks and Recreation: In the episode "Andy and April's Fancy Party", Andy needs to know April's middle name for the justice of the peace. She whispers her middle name, Roberta, to him so Leslie won't hear, but Andy says it out loud and starts making fun of it.
• Saturday Night Live: The "Pat" character is based on keeping up the character's Ambiguous Gender. In one sketch, several people trying to figure out the character's gender ask for Pat's middle name. Pat is reluctant to reveal it, saying that it's embarrassing, but the curious characters insist, believing that it will finally provide an answer to the mystery. Pat finally reveals that it's... "O'Neil," the character's mother's maiden name, so the mystery remains.
• In Henry Danger, Henry's middle name is revealed to be Prudence. Unfortunately, his father decided to reveal this to the school bully while his family was over for dinner.
• These may be embarrassing or awesome depending on who you are, but in the Good Luck Charlie stinger of "Special Delivery" Amy reveals the fifth Duncan child's full name as Toby Wan-Kenobi Duncan. When PJ points out the middle name, she tells him "Shut up PJ Darth".
• In The Middle, Sue's full name is revealed to be Sue Sue Heck. Sue initially wants to change her middle name but comes to love it by the end of the episode.
• The Office (US): Gabe's full name is Gabriel Susan Lewis. A lesser case regards Kelly, as once the other Kelly who arrived asks for Middle Name Basis as Erin, she replies "Well, you know what my name is? Rajnigandha. And I hate it. I hate it!"
• Full House: The episode "Pal Joey" reveal's Danny's as Ernest and Joey's as Alvin.
  Danny: We have horrible middle names.
  • D.J.'s is treated like this in season 1's "Sisterly Love".
    Stephanie: Donna Jo Margaret!
    Jesse: Margaret?
• On Haven, Audrey reveals her middle name is Prudence, "self-inflicted" at her confirmation. In a Friendship Moment, Nathan reveals his is Thaddeus, inflicted on him by his father. Audrey agrees Garland is a "bad, bad man" for this.
• Fellow Travelers: Although Hawk is willing to reveal his middle name to Tim, he refuses to talk about it any further.
  Tim: "Hawkins Z. Fuller." I'd love to know what the "Z" stands for.
  Hawk: Zebadiah
  Tim: Zebadiah?
  Hawk: Don't start.
• George from Inside George Webley has the feminine "Meredith" as his.

Music

• Rush (Band): Neil Peart's middle name is "Ellwood". He mentions his "unfortunate middle name" in his book Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road; when he begins cooking for his sick wife after their daughter dies in a car crash, he calls himself "Chef Ellwood". He also signs various letters depicted in the book with "NEP," for Neil Ellwood Peart.

Radio

• The Burkiss Way has a sketch in which Richard Nixon's advisers tell him successful Presidents have silly middle names like "Delano" and "Fitzgerald", so they've invented a computer program designed to give Nixon one too. Unfortunately, when they test it on the Vice President it gives him silly first and last names (Spiro Agnew). When it offers suggestions for Nixon's middle name, he picks...Stonehouse (which he doesn't realise is the surname of a disgraced British politician).
• In Hancock's Half Hour we find Anthony Aloysius St. John [pr. Sinjen] Hancock; William Montmorency Beaumont Kerr; and Sidney Balmoral James. All named after their respective actors, but the middle names (except John) are fake.
• In Hello Cheeky, Barry Cryer explains that his parents had a difference of opinion regarding his middle name, so they wrote their suggestions down and picked it out of a hat. As such, his full name is Barry Seven-And-Three-Eights Cryer.
  • To which John responds by saying that his full name is John "Glug, glug" Junkin. "The vicar fell in the font."
• In The Men from the Ministry Mr. Lamb has several, including Valentino, Cantebury and Hieronymous.

Roleplay

• In Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues, Jenna Sanderson's middle name is "Agatha", which she doesn't like because she feels it belongs to an old woman.
• In the League of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions Sailor Evil's full name is Griselda Ethylene Evil & she didn't want to be known as Sailor Ethylene as it made her sound like an unleaded gasoline.

Tabletop Games

• Penny Arcade: Jim Darkmagic's middle name is Winifred

Video Games

• Kimberly Ray Eckman from Backyard Sports.
• The full name of the Big Bad of the Crash Bandicoot series is Neo Periwinkle Cortex. A rare case, as he doesn't find it very embarrassing.
• In Kathy Rain, Kathy finds out her roommate, Eileen's middle name is "Mildred" and tries to taunt her over it next time they meet. Eileen immediately returns fire with her own knowledge of Kathy's equally silly-sounding middle name "Agatha".
• In the Monkey Island series, Guybrush Threepwood's middle name is stated to be "Ulysses". For obvious reasons, this doesn't bother him.
• According to Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Captain Qwark's full name is Copernicus Leslie Qwark. He just uses "Copernicus S. Qwark" in A Crack in Time.
• In combat, Pokémon Gold and Silver Gym Leader Pryce says his middle name is Willow. However, he isn't embarrassed by this fact; he's proud of it.
• A Side Quest late in Serious Sam 4 reveals that "Serious" Sam Stone's middle name is Herbert. It was embarrassing enough for him to "have it surgically removed".
• In Sprung, Danny's full name is Danny Leslie Murray, then cue Lucas teasing him about it.
• We find out that Jim Raynor of StarCraft fame has a pretty embarrassing middle name in a secret mission:
  Matt: Just be careful, okay?
  Jim: Hey, "careful" is my middle name.
  Matt: I thought your middle name was Eugene?
  Jim: ...shut up, Matt.

Web Animation

• Referenced on Homestar Runner in Marzipan's Answering Machine 15, where the King of Town accuses Marzipan of letting it leak that his middle name is Wad.
• In Lego Pirate Misadventures, Captain Isaiah Jameson Clarabell Puddykins Gunnelsworth III absolutely insists on being addressed only by his rank. Commodore Terrence Bags has a case of really poor initials but has a similar method of identification.
• In Red vs. Blue, as a Shout-Out to The Producers (see the Film folder), Lt. Smith eventually reveals that his full name is John Elizabeth Andersmith.
• In Space Tree, the Commander is quick to point out that even though his name is spelled Michelle, it's pronounced Michael.

Webcomics

• Basic Instructions has some advice for you.
• The Narrator of Books Don't Work Here has threatened to make Robin Galling's middle name start with a C, although it hasn't actually happened yet.
• But I'm a Cat Person stars Sparrow Elbereth Applebaum. Her mother will concede that the middle name is not very Jewish, but insists that her first name is.
• Dawn of Dawn of Time finds Gideon's middle name (Algernon) hilarious... even though she doesn't speak his language (and it's debatable if she understands it).
• El Goonish Shive has Tedd Drew Verres, (Tedd D. Verres) which isn't all that bad but embarrasses him anyway. The author has noted that a tortured resemblance to "Teddy bears" was completely fortuitous. Note that Tedd has never been called "Teddy" by anyone except Grace, who presumably can get away with it.
  • It's inverted with Tiffany "Susan" Pompoms, where the middle name is the only bit that doesn't completely mortify her.
• Everyday Heroes gives us Thomas Humperdinck Sharpley ("Thump" to his friends).
• Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name brings us paranormal investigator Hanna Falk Cross. Oddly, he doesn't seem to realize how embarrassing his first name is.
• In Kagerou, Red's full name is James Valentine Beethovan. Not exactly the kind of middle name most people would want, especially not Red.
• "CHARLIE MOONBEAM TRUEMAN!" from Khaos Komix
  Tom: Ohmygod — you have the worst name ever.
• In this page of Lint, Derf has to guess the middle name of the King Incognito, Sangwine, in a game of trivial pursuit with one of the villains. It would take too long to explain.
• Dave Prescott Davenport of Narbonic. In the Spinoff Babies strip Li'l Mell, we get another: Melody Wildflower Kelly.
  • Helen's full name is Helen Beta Narbon. This is mostly embarrassing because it's the tipoff that her "mother" is actually the woman she was cloned from.
• Questionable Content:
  • Played with. When Mrs Reed gives Marten a Full-Name Ultimatum, she calls him "MARTEN TIBERIUS REED!" However, Tiberius isn't really his middle name ("It WOULD be, if his father weren't such a stick-in-the-mud"). While he thinks it's an embarrassing name (and clearly so did his dad), his mom and friends all think it's Awesome McCoolname.
  • Raven is an inversion and a subversion. Her first name is Blodwyn (her parents are Welsh), which she avoids like the plague, so she uses her middle name instead. The subversion comes into play since she was originally introduced as an emo goth (before she became a Perky Goth), and Faye makes fun of her for naming herself after "a disease-carrying avian," unaware it is one of her birth names.
• Torg of Sluggy Freelance has the middle name of "Sluggy". Not much better is Riff's middle name of Tubesox.
• Something*Positive's Davan: "Oh hell no! That's humiliating!" Negotiations ensue.
• In Two Guys and Guy, it's revealed that Wayne's full name is "Wayne W. Wayne", because his parents just didn't care. Though he's not keen to admit it, it's implied that the "W." stands for "Wayne" as well.

Web Original

• The Board James Grand Finale reveals that Motherfucker Mike's middle name is Clarence, and also that "Motherfucker Mike" is his real first and last name.
• According to a contest circa 1998, the middle name of Cracked magazine's mascot Sylvester P. Smythe was "Phooey."
• In Epic Rap Battles of History, Nice Peter's middle name is Alexis, Epic Lloyd threatens him to leak it on the Internet during their battle.
• In Jake and Amir, Amir's full name is "Amir Valerie Blumenfeld". At one point Jake replies "you know you can change your middle name?"
• Not Always Right has a guy who gave himself one while drunk. At least, it "certainly helps in the identification process".
• Shadow of the Templar: Simon Fordwith Drake. He only admits to the "Ford" bit.
• In the Whateley Universe stories, heroine Chaka (Toni Chandler) does the 'my middle name is danger' schtick and then admits that her middle name is Marc. She used to be a boy named Anthony Marc Chandler.

Western Animation

• According to the film Aloha, Scooby-Doo!, Fred Jones' middle name is Herman. He cringes when Velma mentions it.
• In an episode of American Dad!, Stan says that he had to give up his search for Oliver North's gold when his kids were born, to which Hayley responds, "Is that why my middle name is Dreamsmasher?"
  • Steve's middle name is Anita.
• Sterling Malory Archer has his mother's first name as his middle name, and Lana's middle name is Anthony (after Susan B.). Later on, Malory gets Lana to make her granddaughter's middle name Malory as well.
• In Ben 10: Alien Force, Kevin's middle name of "Ethan" is embarrassing for him, because it means his full name is "Kevin E. Levin".
  • Ben's middle name is Kirby. He just thinks it's kind of dumb-sounding.
• Bob's Burgers: "Mother Daughter Laser Razor" reveals that Logan's middle name is "Barry". Not embarrassing on its own, until you read "Logan Barry Bush" out loud.
  Cynthia Bush: [angry, defensive] We didn't think it through!
• Lucky Piquel, from Bonkers, has Shirly as his middle name. He said that it was his father's name.
• In Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, one of Buzz's teammates, Booster "Sinclair" Munchapper has one. In the episode "Root of Evil", Mira and XR comment on it after Booster has a flashback to his childhood.
• In Captain Flamingo, Milo's middle name is Ignacius, used by his mom as a Full-Name Ultimatum in "Fault Line". In fact, his father has the same middle name as him, and it's used in the same manner.
• CatDog: Cliff's name is short for Clifford, which he isn't proud of — although he thinks it's better than his middle name "Maurice". Shortly after, it's revealed that Lube's name is Ignatius, though he doesn't mind.
• Rufus Bumpskin Hardacre, Corrupt Corporate Executive Big Bad of the Australian cartoon Crocadoo, tends to use less embarrassing names for his middle initial throughout the series (such as 'Blockbuster'), until his visiting smother reveals it in the finale, eliciting shocked reactions whenever she says it.
• The Daria character Michael Jordan Mackenzie, whose name was changed to this by his father after a Chicago Bulls playoff game.
• Detentionaire has Cam, a.k.a. Camillio Esmereldo Martinez.
• Douglas Yancey Funnie, anyone? Made even worse because his guidance counselor called him by this name almost exclusively.
  • Thanks to being named by a real-world contest winner, his infant sister has a worse name - Cleopatra Dirtbike Funnie.
• In a Shout-Out to Trek, the eponymous protagonist in Duckman was eventually "fully" named Eric Tiberius Duckman. His partner had both an embarrassing middle and first name: Willibald Feivel Cornfed.
• DuckTales (2017): While on a mission with his mom, Dewey is forced to admit that Donald gave him the middle name of "Dingus". Della, who was already upset at what Donald ended up naming the triplets, isn't impressed. However, she was going to name the kids Jet, Turbo, and Rebel, so maybe she and Donald just aren't good at naming children...
• Eddy, of Ed, Edd n Eddy, has the middle name Skipper, Edd's middle name is Marion, and Ed has the middle name Horace. When Kevin finds out Eddy's middle name, he publicly humiliates Eddy by first making him do all sorts of embarrassing things under the pretense that he won't tell the other kids... and then tells them all anyway For the Evulz.
• On Family Guy:
  • Peter Griffin's middle name is Lowenbrau. For those who don't know, it's a German beer. Peter pronounces it LOW-en-brow (as did Miller Brewing Co., which made and advertised a licensed version of the beer in the US till 2002), but the German pronunciation would be LO-ven-brow (the actual name of the beer has umlauts over the O and A and is thus pronounced LERV-en-broy).
  • Stewie's middle name is Gilligan.
  • Chris's full name is Christopher Cross Griffin, an homage to Christopher Cross, a somewhat popular singer in the 1980s (or more likely an attempt at a cheap joke at his expense).
• Gravity Falls:
  • According to Word of God, Wendy's middle name is Blerble.
  • In "The Love God", the full name of Wendy's ex-boyfriend Robbie turns out to be Robert Stacey Valentino. No wonder he's so surly.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: The episode “Scary Poppins” reveals that "Careful" is Grim’s middle name. Literally.
  Grim: Oh, I never forgave Mom for that one…
• Harley Quinn (2019): Kiteman proposes marriage to "Poison Gertrude Ivy".
• Harriet the Spy has Harriet M. Welsch's middle name revealed to be the result of her father mistakenly scribbling on her birth certificate trying to get the ink in his pen flowing, resulting in the system registering the scribble as "M". She is mortified to learn that her middle name is nothing more than a scribble. She eventually adopts the middle name "Myrtle", after her nanny's birth middle name.
  • Related to above, Harriet's nanny, Ole Golly, did not like her own birth middle name. So much so, she officially had it changed to "Willa" (after the author Willa Cather), much to her mother's objection.
• On Jimmy Two-Shoes, Beezy's Mysterious Middle Initial is eventually revealed to stand for Jo-Jo.
• In the first The Looney Tunes Show episode, "Best Friends", Daffy Duck's middle name is revealed to be Sheldon, which he thinks is uncool, so he unofficially changed it to "Armando". He admits in "Bugs and Daffy Get a Job" that Armando never really caught on because middle names rarely come up in conversation.
• The The Mighty B! episode "Name Shame" revolves around the main character's pseudo-Hindi middle name, "Kajolica". Turns out "not only is it embarrassing, it's cursed". Go figure.
• Balactus, Minoriteam's black stereotype parody of Galactus, has a real name so embarrassing that invoking it is the only way to defeat him. We don't get to learn the whole thing, but it starts with "Leslie Ira".
• Cranky Doodle Donkey from the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "A Friend In Deed". "Nobody calls me Doodle!"
  • This is apparently more of a personal thing rather than embarrassment, as he doesn't mind when a specific somepony calls him that. Specifically, Matilda, whom he loved.
• On Phineas and Ferb, Candace's middle name is "Gertrude".
• On the show Recess, T.J. Detweiler's first name is Theodore, but the J is a mystery. It's implied that this stands for something embarrassing since another character once tried to blackmail him with the knowledge. It's eventually revealed to be Jasper.
  • It's worth noting that in the episode "The Biggest Trouble Ever" as the gang prepares to climb the statue of previous mayor Thaddeus T. Third III after Mikey mentioned what the statue metaphorically said to him, T.J. had his own thoughts and, in revealing them, called himself Jasper. Perhaps the fact the name is supposedly embarrassing is only believed to be so by the briber.
    T.J.: Hop on, Jasper, I'm built for climbing!
• In The Replacements, superspy Agent K's middle name is Mildred.
• In Rescue Heroes, Jack Hammer’s middle name is Percy. When his sister brings it up, he is pretty embarrassed. When his friends get to see his full name on one of his trophies, they laugh at his middle name.
• On The Simpsons:
  • Fat Tony's middle name is Marion.
  • Bart Simpson's full name is Bartholomew Jojo Simpson.
  • "Homer J. Simpson. The J stands for Jay." Not really embarrassing, he just didn't know it until later.
  • Milhouse Mussolini Van Houten.
  • Robert Underdunk Terwilliger, a.k.a. Sideshow Bob. Though that's actually the surname of his mother, as heard in the 'Funeral for a Fiend' episode.
  • Amber, the Vegas showgirl Homer accidentally married when he was drunk, had the middle name Pai-Gow.
• In Static Shock, Virgil's middle name is Ovid. He provides one of the page quotes.
• Barbara Ann Bunny from Tiny Toon Adventures.
• Total Drama Action reveals Harold to have several middle names, one of which is "Doris." Cue Duncan calling him that repeatedly. This actually embarrasses Harold, which seems odd, since he's usually too clueless to know when he should be humiliated.

For women with embarrassing married names

Comic Strips

• One memorable Garfield strip had Garfield watching a TV show where a woman named Philomena Scott Aphat decides not to marry a man named Thaddeus Ramsbottom because her name would become "Philomena Scott Aphat Ramsbottom".^note "Philomena's got a fat ram's bottom."

Fan Works

• Hunted Tribes: After Wolverine Mechwarrior Geoffrey Cale gets his girlfriend Cally Henderson pregnant and announces his intent to marry her, Mechwarrior Cale's CO goes ballistic, asking, among other things, how he is going to deal with giving his wife a pornstar name. Mechwarrior Cale offers to smack his CO around in a Circle of Equals for insulting his fianceé, and says she decided to go by her full name, Calandra, after their wedding, which sounds a lot more classy.

Film

• Carry On Cleo - Senna was a nice name until she married someone called Pod.
• Subversion: in Dumb and Dumber, the female lead's first name is Mary, and the male lead's last name is Christmas, but they don't end up getting married.
• In Meet the Parents, Pamela Martha Byrnes (Teri Polo) marries Greg Focker (Ben Stiller), and her parents realize this would make her Pamela Martha Focker. (Notably she's not embarrassed by that and even tells them and Greg she won't be having her name hyphenated)
  • Also Greg isn't his real name — nor is it even Gregory; it's Gaylord.
• The Wedding Singer - Drew Barrymore's character, had she gone through with her intended marriage, would've been Julia Guglia (pronounced Goo-lia) during a scene in which she's practicing greeting her wedding guests in front of a mirror, she says the full name aloud and nearly bursts into tears.
  • This is a shout out to Jerry Hall being engaged to Bryan Ferry in the '80s. She didn't go through with it either.

Literature

• Cindy of Sisters... No Way! feels this about Margaret, whose last name is Magee - which is the name of her husband that she's separated from (Maggie Magee). Margaret probably doesn't feel this way, as she continues to go by 'Ms Magee' at the school even after she's married Cindy's father.
• In P. G. Wodehouse works, Bertie Wooster is leery of marrying Gertrude Winkworth because then they'd "...be known to all and sundry as 'Bertie and Gertie', like some bad music-hall act."
  • His middle name is Wilberforce, a fact he likes to hush up except in times of crisis.

Live-Action TV

• Grey's Anatomy: "Dude. She's Callie O'Malley."
• Married... with Children had next door neighbor Marcy (post-divorce) get married to Jefferson D'Arcy in an impulsive fit. She spent an episode lamenting the fact that she was now "Marcy D'Arcy."
• Murphy Brown — Corky Sherwood marries into the Forrest family and hyphenates it to Corky Sherwood-Forrest.
• Subverted and lampshaded in The Office (US). From the beginning of the series to partway into it, Pam is engaged to Roy Anderson. When she eventually breaks up with him, she notes how close she came to becoming Pamela Anderson.
• Inverted with Jill Casey in Royal Pains. Her maiden name is McGillicuddy, which she finds embarrassing, so she keeps her ex-husband's last name.
• In one episode of The West Wing, Sam reveals that before he joined the Bartlet campaign, he was engaged to a woman named Lisa Sherbourne. CJ asks if the reason they didn't get married was that her name would've been Seaborn-Sherbourne.
• Discussed in What I Like About You, as one of Holly's reasons for not being interested in a guy; his last name is "Wood", which would make her married name "Holly Wood".
• Lampshaded on an episode of The Middle. When Sue's boyfriend, Darrin McGrew, proposes to her, Axl points out her married-name would be "Sue Sue McGrew". Averted, as she breaks off the engagement at the end of the episode.
• Discussed on an episode of Happy Endings, when Penny's new boyfriend is surnamed Hitler. Subverted and Played for Laughs when she wrote what would be her married name in different combinations (one being "Penny Hartz-Hitler"). Although Penny was okay with his unfortunate last-name, her boyfriend broke up with her after finding Penny's writings and being thoroughly creeped out.

Radio

• The "New Zealand" episode of British radio series Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off features Giles realising his friend is about to marry into the name Arabella Fonte, as in "daylight come and me wanna go home".

Western Animation

• An aversion in Phineas and Ferb. One would think that Charlene Doofenshmirtz would consider her married name embarrassing, but she fully embraces it, going so far as to keep the name even after getting a divorce.
• Selma Bouvier of The Simpsons has quite a long string of married names thanks to several failed marriages: Selma Bouvier Terwilliger Hutz McClure Discothèque Simpson D'Amico. In order, she was previously married to Sideshow Bob^†("Black Widower"; Bob's full name is Robert Underdunk Terwilliger, Jr.), Lionel Hutz^†(mentioned in "Much Apu About Nothing"), Troy McClure^†("A Fish Called Selma"), Disco Stu^†(mentioned in "There's Something About Marrying"; Stu's full name is Stuart Discotèque), Abraham Simpson^†("Rome-Old and Juli-Eh") and Fat Tony^†("The Real Housewives of Fat Tony"; Tony's full name is Marion Anthony D'Amico) — none of those relationships lasted beyond an episode. She cited this as her reason for refusing to marry Apu in "Much Apu About Nothing", saying that the last thing she needed was to add "Nahasapeemapeti-whatever" to the mix (which only included Bouvier, Terwilliger, Hutz and McClure at the time, mind you).

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