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Never make a drunken bet. At about 3 a.m. one fateful morning, pre-pandemic and several bottles down, a friend and I made a wager on the outcome of the 2020 US election – he for Joe Biden, I for Donald Trump (who, at the time, looked like a sure thing). Then came lockdown, spiraling inflation and unemployment – and the rest is history.
This wasn’t a bet for money. Instead, it was stipulated that whoever lost would legally assume a new middle name. Being gamers of a certain vintage, we drew from the Nintendo canon. If my friend had lost, he’d have become James Edward Bowser Price. Should I lose, I would take on the middle name Waluigi. For the uninitiated, Waluigi is a decidedly second- or even third-tier baddie from Mario Kart, who wears dark blue dungarees and a purple hat.
Having lost, I duly filled out the requisite paperwork and my friend came over to witness the deed poll being signed. Like Gandalf the White, I was reborn. No longer Madeline Mary Grant, but Madeline Mary Waluigi Grant.
Being a woman of my word, there is no changing it back. Soon a passport renewal beckons and when I get married this weekend the vicar insists that, legally, the full name must be read out in church, which may prove a shock for my extended family, who don’t yet know about this change of identity.
As embarrassing as this may be, I do rather enjoy an unexpected or jarring middle name. Politics affords plenty: Keir Rodney Starmer, Mark Gino Francois, Richard Milhous Nixon. Some middle names are eerily prophetic. Unity Mitford had Valkyrie as hers. Coupled with the fact that she was conceived in Swastika, Ontario, nominative determinism begins to look undeniable.
In terms of the politics of ordinary relationships, there is a perfect role for middle names as a sort of compromise zone. It is to the middle name you can demote a much-loved great-grandparent, schoolteacher or cat, still honoring them but without making your child walk around with a ridiculous name. It’s not only an act of compromise with school bullies of the future, it’s also an act of compromise with whoever has provided the other requisite slice of the chromosomes. You will have fond memories of Great Uncle Zerubbabel, but your significant other might not. A middle name is therefore the perfect compromise, preserving filial dignity and marital harmony.
Should we have a son, my fiancé is agitating to inflict a variety of names on him. The current frontrunners are Banastre, Sacheverell or Chrysostom (after the most violent British commander of the US War of Independence, the clerical controversialist of the reign of Queen Anne and the great preacher of 4th-century Byzantium, respectively). I’m hoping for “Edmund.” Happily, this is where middle names really show their utility.
The real experts in this department were the Puritans, whose extreme derangement didn’t stop at regicide. The already “creatively” named Praise-God Barebone had a son whom he called Nicholas “If-Jesus-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned-unless-Jesus-Christ-had-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned” Barebone. Must have been a nightmare for the school uniform nametapes.
