PennyX, I love your name choices, and I don't think two mns are too much at all. That one of them is your surname is sort of beside the point in my opinion, but then three of my siblings have two mns paired with long fns (J0nathan D@vid Xav!er, St3phani3 M@ry Lor3tta, and Elizab3th Mar!a-Susann3), so I may not be the best judge! My sibs' names were chosen to honor family, which is the same reason you'd be choosing H0ffm@n as a second mn for your children. I do think it's good that you're ready for it to "disappear most of the time in actual usage," as that is my parents' experience -- X@v!3r and Lor3tta were dropped from my brother's and sister's names so often that my parents hyphenated Mar!a-Susann3 for my last sister in hopes it would make it clear (on forms, etc.) that each name is important. It hasn't. (Are you hoping for opinions on your decision to not change your own last name?)

Well, this isn't a deep analysis or anything, but I will say that both names sound perfectly lovely and fine when I read/say them, not too much at all.  I think it helps that both surnames share the same stressed vowel in the first syllable, and the F and N sounds--it all kind of flows for me.  And I think your reasoning for wanting to do it is good, and your expectations for the use of the second middle are realistic.  So it all sounds good to me.  I will leave it to others with more experience to talk about whether it's a hassle, etc., but in the abstract I think using both names seems like a fine idea.

My husband's cousin kept her maiden name, and gave it as a second middle to all three of her children. Her maiden name is much more of a mouthful than yours: Szent-Györgyi. Yes, it happens to be spelled with a hyphen. (Don't get me started on the d%$#ed hyphen.) But most of the family can't even remember the kids' first middle names; I doubt the extra mouthful in the name makes much difference in everyday life.

I come from the other extreme: growing up, I had no middle name, so I don't really know how having two would affect filling out forms and such.

Honestly? I think you should use your last name as their actual middle name, rather than a second middle name that you know is going to disappear and never be used.

However, the names do sound good together. And I think it will only be a hassle to have 4 names when filling out forms where you need to have your name what's on the birth certificate, which isn't that often.

I think the reasons, your understanding of how it will play out in practice, and the names themselves are all right on.  I also have two middle names.  Both are family names, and in practice I almost never used the second one.  But yes, the most important thing to me is that I know it's there, even though it doesn't appear often.  I also kept my maiden name when I married, and at least part of the reason was that I loved all four of my names for their uniqueness and connection to my family and didn't want to get rid of any.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of Ur$ul@, but's it's a classic and I love your boy name choice.  And I really don't think they're too much or too long.

I have two middle names, because when I got married I dropped my maiden to a second middle and took my husband's name. Thus far (coming up on 4 years now), it has been less of a problem than I expected. The main issue that comes up is that my two middle names together are quite long—Victoria + a 7-letter maiden name = 15 letters. That means that on a lot of forms (including airline tickets), a few letters of my second middle name will be dropped off (the number varies—sometime they only get the first two letters of the name in). It caused me some anxiety at first, but I've never actually been challenged at the airport. If that's something that might bother you, you could get around it by choosing short first middles—Simon Gray H0ffm@n F0nten0t, e.g., would mostly avoid it. However, I find it more an annoyance than a real problem.

When I don't need to be using my full legal name (which is usually the case, even on things like bank accounts), I often end up dropping the second middle. But sometimes when it makes sense, I will drop the first middle instead (like on college alumni stuff when I still want that connection to my former identity, or professionally when I want the continuity with my previous jobs). I actually find it gives me a nice degree of flexibility to shape how I present myself. Both versions are me, and there are no name police out there telling me that I need to stick to one version or another.

As far as your name picks go, I think they sound great—the two LNs work really nicely together. It's a lot of name, but it ends up sounding very dignified and aristocratic (I particularly like how Ursula Sabine mirrors the French and Germanic sounds in the LN). I say go for it!

I brought up a similar idea to my husband and he also thought it was a bit much.  However I don't think people use their middle names too often.  And it's much less of a mouthful than if you hyphenated.  I don't think it's a big deal to use two middle names and it's a nice way to give your child a part of your own name.

Is that $abine as a mm?  I'm sorry but the first thing I think of is the Rape of the $abine Women.

I don't think it is a bit much at all. The last names sound good together, even if they are a bit long.  In fact, I feel a little sad that your last name is likely to be lost as the second middle and I really want to urge you to just do a double barrel or hyphenated last name.  I've seen hyphenated last names that are much longer and/or don't have as nice of a flow as H0ffm@n-F0nt3n0t.

I have two middles and love it; it helps me feel more connected to my mom's side of the family AND it is super handy in tracking how my name gets distributed via mailing lists - I have lots of variants I can give out in non-official channels. Now my son has two middle names as well - the tradition continues. We even worked it out so his two middle initials (DM) are the same as my first and last initial. Very, very happy about it!

I think it's the perfect solution for you. Lots of people have four-names long full names... really, naming-wise, it's far more normal than random apostrophes and other letter decoration thingys formally/formerly known as diacritical marks.

As for actual usage; in some ways I think of middle names as a fine set of inherited china - you don't use it every day, it takes up space in the cabinet... but every once in a while there's a special occasion where it gets to be used and appreciated. For me, that's reason enough to keep it.

PennyX, you should definitely have two middles, one being your surname. My aunt and uncle did this with my cousins and my female cousin has continued it with her two kids. In fact, my cousin took her husband's last name and in the process jettisoned her first middle name, leaving her with FN HerMom'sLN HerMaidenName NewLN. It's worked well for two generations in this family and as long as you're ok with the second middle disappearing some of the time, I think it's a nice connection for the kids to have with you. 

I think you definitely can and should go with your 2 middles for all the reasons you outlined. You son/daughter can always drop either middle at some stage if they want and neither combo is too long or awkward in my opinion.

The name might seem big on a little baby but they grow very very fast and won't be that small for long!

I know I'm just repeating what others have said, but it really sounds like your proposed approach is the best one for your family. We often caution people here to weigh the balance of potential hassle (over spelling, bureaucratic forms, gender confusion, what have you) versus how much they really love a name, and in your situation it seems very clear: you have a strong emotional connection to including your name, and the potential for "bother" seems fairly minimal, in the sense that it's unlikely to come up frequently. It sounds like you're realistic about the second middle not being used much by others and that it's just important that you and your kids know it's there. I actually think all the names sound good together too - but that's less important than their meaning to you and your family.

It sounds like hyphenating or just giving the kids your surname are off the table. I go back and forth on hyphenating; it really does seem like the most egalitarian approach, but people complain about it being a pain to deal with pretty frequently. I don't know whether that's likely to be less of a hassle for our kids' generation than for ours - or not. Your name and your husband's have such complementary and lilting sounds that they would combine beautifully, if you do decide to go that route. I suppose they are just long and unusual enough to be somewhat cumbersome though: you probably have to spell out F--- constantly, and even H---- likely requires clarification of "two f's, one n." In your shoes, I’d probably consider that a price worth paying, but of course I haven’t lived with either name as you and your husband have so am obviously not the best judge. Somehow the two names together, whether you hyphenate or not, just sound very continental and literary (probably because I'm thinking of E.T.A. H----), with a pleasing balance of light sounds and deeper cultural associations. They make a good “team.”

I guess I'm a mite jealous because you have such melodious names to work with and thus several plausible and pleasing solutions (though still a tricky choice to make). Neither my husband nor I changed our names when we married either, so I'm going to be facing a similar conundrum when we have kids. Unfortunately, having ruled out hyphenating for ourselves as too unwieldy, I can't see then saddling on our kids the combination of his long, dense Indian surname with several consonants, including an aspirated one, that routinely get misheard plus my odd, choppy Swiss-German surname with its Americanized pronunciation that isn't intuitive in either English or German. While I'm not a huge fan of the assumption that kids always get the father's surname, we'll definitely go that route, because I do feel it's important to emphasize our kids’ connection to the most geographically distant branch of their family, in India (a lot of his mom's side is here, as well as both sides of my family), and I also want them to claim their Indian heritage despite growing up in the U.S. There's a tradition in his family's region of using dad's first name for a middle, leaving the kids with only one given name; we likely won't try to follow that, but we might still want to match the initials (and there aren't lots of names I like with that initial). Plus we may want to go with Sanskrit given names; there are a lot of those I do like, so I’m excited about that possibility. Still, altogether it leaves me fretting a bit about finding a way for my kids’ names to reflect their relationship to me as well, so I can very much relate to your yearning for a name connection. I really appreciate hearing how you – and others who’ve responded – have thought through the various facets of this situation.

It sounds like you’ve found a good solution, and your kids will surely have distinctive and beautiful names whatever variation you decide on!

- kalmia (reposting, not logged in)

I've got two middles now, and I've never had a problem with my name.  Very occasionally bureaucratic forms will think that my second middle (which was my maiden last name) is a hyphenated segment of my actual last name, but that's not hard at all to clear up, and hasn't happened in years.

I've never had any troubles with Social Security, jobs or applications, medical stuff, or flying. 

On my SS card I was able to use all of my names listed in full.  I also used all of my names in full for big financial stuff like mortgages and car purchases. 

Most times for other financial information, I find that it works easiest if I leave both my middles as initials, so November Juniper Cassia Sunlove ends up as November J C Sunlove on credit cards, bank statements and the like.  (Please note that is NOT actually my name!  :)  That's way more interesting than my actual name.) 

Alternatively, because medical forms are a little more restictive on what they allow in their fields, and primarily because I have always been known by a nickname of my original middle name (June, in this example) - my medical forms all have me as N.Juniper (in the first name slot) Cassia (in the middle name slot) Sunlove (in the last name slot) with June listed as the "to call" name.

So.. short version is that there are lots of ways to get around having an "extra" name, and as society gets more blended and multi-national, there are going to be a lot more options for keeping them in use.  Even without that, it's beyond simple to decide to simply drop a name or reduce it to an initial if the bother is more than how fond you are of the name.

Personally, I feel that the more name the better - if you have it, you can decide to drop it, but if you never got it in the first place, it's much harder to add a name legally to your existing name.

We had to make the second middle vs double surname decision a few years back.  We went with double surname, but I think however you want to make that name connection to your kids is awesome.