Re: CHAT: Middle Initials

Andreas Johansson wrote:

> Speaking of what name to reduce to an initial, I have my names in the
> German-inspired style with the most important of the "non-family" names
> last; hence Håkan Andreas Johansson (the second character of "Håkan" is an
> "a" with a small circle above - it's pronounced /o:/). I always sign as
> "Andreas Johansson", and call myself "Andreas (Johansson)" in situations
> formal and informal alike.
Hmm!  In my family it's been the custom for men to go by their second names ever
since my great grandfather Louis Hilding Persson ("Hilding") came over from
southern Sweden:  My grandfather is Carl Robert ("Bob"), his brother is Louis
Russell ("Russ"), my uncle is Joel David ("Dave"), my father is Jon Steven
("Jon"), and I'm Joel Matthew ("Matt").  My brother Justin Erik, who goes by
"Justin", is the first male in at least three generations to break the
tradition.  I always thought that this was a peculiarity of my family, and never
realised it was a common convention among Swedish families.  (The fact that many
of my family names--Louis, Joel--are not traditional Scandinavian names may have
prevented me from putting two and two together.)

Matt.