[vbmoneyspender]

I don't understand that either. If they don't like their first name, why include it as initial in their full name. All they are doing is drawing attention to it.

Putting on my tinfoil hat, I have a suspicion that initializing their first name is some kind of sign that the bi-coastal elites you use to signal to each other that they are somehow affiliated with most destructive American institution of the past 100 years -- i.e. the State Dept.

[Miss Marple]

My husband uses a first initial and his middle name, also. He is about as far away from a State Department elitist as one can get. He does this because he has ALWAYS hated his first name.

Please remove your tin foil. Some men have horrible first names and simply use their forst initial. That's all there is to it.

[1stMarylandRegiment]

If they don't like their first name, why include it as initial in their full name

To distinguish us from our fathers, and to fill the blanks in those damned bubble forms from the 60's.

I am *. **** *******

[reformedliberal]

People are not responsible for their names. Those are given by their parents.

I have a good friend who is a medical professional. He doesn't care for his given first name. Both his names are *family* names, given to perpetuate a tradition. He is not any sort of elite, just a middle-class guy who worked his tail off in the USAF, through 8 years of university and then in his profession. He uses a variation of his middle name.

L Paul Bremer is actually known by his friends as *Jerry*, for some reason. What does that say about him? That he has friends?