[umanwizard]

I wonder what he means by France having a “weird” naming system in common use. As far as I can tell, the traditional French naming system works exactly the same way as the traditional American one (except that it’s more common for French people to have several middle names rather than zero or one, but I don’t think that’s too rare in the US either).

Maybe he’s referring to the fact that some last names are two words (e.g. Marine Le Pen), but I don’t think that’s very common…

Anyway, it could be anything, so I wish he’d said!

[overdrive110]

Perhaps he is thinking of how marriage does not change your last name, but rather gives you an extra, optional last name. [1] The French ID card has two last name fields!

[1] https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nom_d%27usage_en_France

[touisteur]

Err. It still does by default change your name (if you're a woman). But you can ask and keep your 'maiden' (ugh) name or have both. It gets a bit trickier for kids' family names...

[thayne]

> I don’t think that’s too rare in the US eithe

Anecdotal, but the only people I've met in the US with more than one middle name are people who originally came from another country.

Although, I wonder if maybe that is enforced by the fact tha legal forms and similar typically assume you only have first, last, and optionally a (single) middle name.

[theluketaylor]

George Herbert Walker Bush comes to mind as a native son of the US with multiple middle names. He used H. W. in politics, but that still includes some whitespace and non-traditional characters.

[umanwizard]

Or George R. R. Martin.

[Paradigma11]

So you are saying Donald John Trump is likely not a US born Citizen?

[Max-q]

"more than one middle name" :)

[account42]

Perhaps he means allcaps family name followed by normal case given name.