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ArchivesOne letter names...??
I really don't understand why one would name their child just one letter... It doesn't make any sense to me. My mother's middle name, for example, was legally just the letter "K". She changed it, when she was old enough, to Kaye, but I was confounded to know that that was her actual middle name when she was younger. Why do you think people would do that? Is there a particular reason people do that? Is it just laziness, or some other reason? Would you name your child with solely one letter?
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I had an uncle whose name was Russell R. Jones Hite. He named his son Russell R. Jones Hite Jr. His parents named him after a man named Russell R. Jones; I don't know if they ever knew what Mr. Jones' "R" stood for. But my uncle and cousin normally used "R." as their middle initial and usually dropped the "J" for Jones. They liked having the "R" without it standing for anything as a conversation piece.
O is a Korean surname. I once read a newspaper article about a Korean-American man living in the Washington, DC area who had all sorts of problems because his surname was O and many Americans just couldn't believe his last name was spelled with only one letter. He finally changed the spelling to "Oh" so he wouldn't have to go through all the hassles.
There have been many people (mostly men) in the southwestern US (Texas and bordering states) who have just had initials for their name. This comes from men in earlier generations using initials like "J. B." and "G. W." as their everyday names, and then having children named after them. If the infants' parents have known someone as just "J. B." their whole life, it may not seem to them that they are really naming the child after that person if they use another form besides the initials, even if they know what the initials originally stood for.
O is a Korean surname. I once read a newspaper article about a Korean-American man living in the Washington, DC area who had all sorts of problems because his surname was O and many Americans just couldn't believe his last name was spelled with only one letter. He finally changed the spelling to "Oh" so he wouldn't have to go through all the hassles.
There have been many people (mostly men) in the southwestern US (Texas and bordering states) who have just had initials for their name. This comes from men in earlier generations using initials like "J. B." and "G. W." as their everyday names, and then having children named after them. If the infants' parents have known someone as just "J. B." their whole life, it may not seem to them that they are really naming the child after that person if they use another form besides the initials, even if they know what the initials originally stood for.
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Well, I can think of a couple of reasons that are not exactly "laziness." I have heard of people doing this when they wanted to name after two people who the same first initial, for instance Louise and Lawrence. They then give their child the middle name "L." to honor both individuals.
Also, parents from some cultures where middle names don't exist may not really understand them. They may see someone sign his name as John Q. Jones and think the Q itself is the middle name. For example, I know of a Japanese boy who was born in the U.S. to parents who were here temporarily. (In Japan, everyone has only a first and last name, there are no middles.) These parents wanted to do something special that would commemorate the fact that the boy was born in the U.S., so they gave him a middle name-- "C." It is just C. on his U.S. birth certificate, and doesn't appear on his Japanese birth certificate at all. When others asked what C. stood for, they thought a minute and said it was for C-section, and really thought it was quite a funny joke.
I don't know why your mother just had the middle name K. Did she ever ask her parents?
Also, parents from some cultures where middle names don't exist may not really understand them. They may see someone sign his name as John Q. Jones and think the Q itself is the middle name. For example, I know of a Japanese boy who was born in the U.S. to parents who were here temporarily. (In Japan, everyone has only a first and last name, there are no middles.) These parents wanted to do something special that would commemorate the fact that the boy was born in the U.S., so they gave him a middle name-- "C." It is just C. on his U.S. birth certificate, and doesn't appear on his Japanese birth certificate at all. When others asked what C. stood for, they thought a minute and said it was for C-section, and really thought it was quite a funny joke.
I don't know why your mother just had the middle name K. Did she ever ask her parents?
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I do agree with you, it does not make any sense to me. I'm not sure if people think it's creative or they are infact, too lazy. I would never name my child a one letter name. I wouldn't mind naming one of my children a name like Elle or Kay that sounds like one letter.
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