Algore's middle name is Arnold.
GOOD OL' AL WHAT'S HIS NAME WAFFLES AGAIN
A great mystery has risen up around Democratic presidential hopeful Al Gore, and its implications are somewhat sinister. The question concerns his name. Most people seem to have accepted that his first name is Albert. But according to various press reports, the vice president's tax returns indicate that his middle name is Arnold, while his birth certificate gives his middle name simply as the initial "A."
In response to a query from MSNBC gossiper Jeannette Walls, a Gore spokeswoman said that his parents wanted Al to have the option of choosing a middle name, so they merely listed an initial, "A." As a teen-ager, the story goes, he chose "Arnold," which was his father's middle name.
But Walls quotes a source with another angle on the use of the initial: It was chosen to suggest to controversial industrialist Armand Hammer that the youngster was named for him. Why Hammer? Al's father, Al Gore Sr., the Democratic former senator from Tennessee, had very close ties to Hammer and apparently was financially dependent on him all of his days, becoming wealthy as a result of the association.