Middle Names
- Three Presidents used their middle name as their given name:
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- John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. went by Calvin
- Stephen Grover Cleveland went by Grover
- Thomas Woodrow Wilson went by Woodrow
- Seventeen of the 43 presidents to date have no known middle name.
- Franklin Pierce is sometimes referred to as Franklin K. Pierce: the 'K' possibly standing for his mother's maiden name of Kendrick. However, there is no evidence that Pierce was given a middle name at birth or ever used a middle name or middle initial.
- Several Presidential middle names were originally surnames: Baines, Birchard, Delano, Fitzgerald, Walker, Knox, Milhous, Quincy, and Simpson, et al. Most of these were the President's mother's maiden name.
- Gerald Rudolph Ford was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr. therefore giving him the middle name of Lynch before his mother remarried when he was three years old; his name was not legally changed until 1935 while in law school.
- Ulysses S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant. His name was wrongly entered as Ulysses S. Grant when he entered the United States Military Academy.
- Harry S. Truman's middle name was only an initial; the "S" didn't stand for another name. Nevertheless he signed his name using the period after the letter.
- George Herbert Walker Bush is the only President with two middle names.
- There are no duplicate Presidential middle names, with the partial exception of Herbert Walker and Walker.
- Two Presidents have middle names which are also Presidential last names: Ronald Wilson Reagan and William Jefferson Clinton.
Read more about this topic: List Of Presidents Of The United States By Name
Famous quotes containing the words middle and/or names:
“Angry men and furious machines
Swarm from the little blue of the horizon
To the great blue of the middle height.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Without infringing on the liberty we so much boast, might we not ask our professional Mayor to call upon the smokers, have them register their names in each ward, and then appoint certain thoroughfares in the city for their use, that those who feel no need of this envelopment of curling vapor, to insure protection may be relieved from a nuisance as disgusting to the olfactories as it is prejudicial to the lungs.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)