[dodecaphonic]

Brazilian here. Around these parts, middle names are not a thing. They don’t show up in forms, and also aren’t expected to exist.

When the names before the family names are multiple, we call them “nomes compostos” (composed/combined names). There are very common combinations, such as “Carlos Eduardo” and “Maria Clara”.

If someone named “Maria Clara Guimarães Schindhelm” fills out a form, they’ll say their given name is “Maria Clara”, with the rest being the surname.

Knowing where the given name ends is an exercise in pattern recognition. We have a sense of what’s a given name, and a sense of what’s a surname. It’s an imperfect system, though: some families have surnames that are also used as first/given names (a common one is “Francisco”).

[kxkdkdjxkwk]

> Around these parts, middle names are not a thing.

Not sure where you’re getting that from. Middle names are very much a thing in Brazil. You don’t often find forms with separate fields for middle names but middle names are ridiculously common nonetheless.

[dodecaphonic]

What I was trying to convey is that there are people with more than one name that are not their family names, but "middle name" as a concept does not exist in the same way it does in other cultures. It's not an expected component of a person's full name.