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I share a first name with my father, so to save confusion, they called me by my middle name. If it were strictly a matter of social convenience, that would be fine. But you can't do anything in the modern world without submitting some kind of form, and the form is what gives me trouble. I can put my first initial in the First Name field, but then some people think that means I want to be called R. Some people, confronted with a single letter in the First Name field, might look at the Middle Name field, but often the Middle Name field is actually a Middle Initial field. So now they have no idea what to call me, and usually default back to R. I could take the daring step of "lying," and putting my middle name in the First Name field, and my first initial in the Middle Initial field, but if they ever try to compare that record to, say, my drivers license or passport, there will be a mismatch, and some uncomfortable questions being asked. This is especially troublesome if the form is something that is likely to be coordinated with other forms in different offices. Ironically, the first time I ever got any pushback for being an Initial-Name-Name instead of a Name-Initial-Name was when the HR department at Burroughs was processing my new-hire paperwork. Burroughs was chaired, at the time, by one W. Michael Blumenthal. |