I think it's fair to say you see even fewer "S"s running around.... I wonder how many people would have gotten Harry Truman's middle name if it didn't just automatically accept it after you typed in the first letter.
Harry Truman's middle name is an interesting one. Both of his grandfathers had first names that began with 'S' so instead of just picking one, his parents decided to just use the first letter of BOTH of his grandfathers' names and give him the middle name 'S.' Technically, since that is his entire middle name, there should be no period after it, but because that is how Truman signed his name as president, that is the way it has always been written.
It's not that uncommon in my rural area of Missouri - also Harry Truman's state. My late father-in-law's middle name was C. He was a twin and his brother's middle name was Lee and they wanted it to rhyme, but it was in honor of the doctor who delivered them, Dr. Churchill. Another brother was named A J, in honor of both of his grandfathers, Allen and Jackson.
:) I added it when QuizMaster chose a picture of Bush to go with the quiz. He said it was because Bush is the president most associated with his middle name, though I don't agree with that and the results of the quiz I think disprove it, too. Bush comes in 4th place in the most-guessed answers, even given the bump that usually comes with being featured in the picture at the top.
I hear dubya all the time but it still took me a minute to remember what his actual middle name was. That's actually true for a few presidents who's middle initial I knew but couldn't think of what it stood for, like Warren G. Harding.
He wasn't, but his middle name was just never very famous. Obama's became so because it was used extensively by his political opponents to try and get people to associate him with Muslims and the Iraqi leader, Bush's was as a way to differentiate him from his father. Same for Adams. Some of these other guys that get guessed a lot are just known for having three names... JFK, FDR, LBJ... they're all from before Reagan's time but much more guessed. Nobody ever used Reagan's middle name.
Great quiz! Got them all, though I tried a bunch of guesses for Ford in the final seconds (I knew the initial was R, which helped immensely). Regarding Reagan's middle name, I remember when he was elected, there was a small contingent of doomsday conspiracy theorists who pointed out that his first, middle, and last names all contained 6 letters, so of course he must be the Antichrist! Crazy, but it helped me remember the name!
No. I also have a middle name. On my birth certificate in the space for "first name" or "given name" or whatever it says... there are two names filled in. Then under "middle name" there is a different name there.
One of my aunts had three names. My grandmother wanted to name her after her two best friends, but didn't want to show preference for either by calling her one name over the other, so she gave her a third name as her "user name".
Seriously, is it like a requirement that presidential candidates have either no middle name (how common is that really?) or have a extremely rare, strange, last-name-as-, or made-up middle name? I would think that sheer statistics alone would dictate that ONE of them have the middle name "John"!
Right, I mean, as the quiz well tells us! I suppose I'm not in any place to speak, since my middle name is uncommon, and my grandfather's, father's, and brother's shared middle name was literally made up by that side of the family to sound classy. Or something. I'm not sure what they were thinking.
Many of those "strange" middle names are family surnames on the mother's side used as an honor to her side of the family. I would say it is interesting how many people who use family surnames end up as Presidents.
oh.. hey. Didn't realize this was going to get re-featured today. I wanted to make some changes to it... possibly address the US Grant controversy somehow. But I was planning to just update it after November so I could add in Diane. Haven't decided yet if I'll also accept Rodham.
I've always heard that Harry Truman did not put a period after his middle initial because it didn't stand for anything. He had two grandfathers with the initial S and his parents didn't want to choose one over the other, so they just gave him the initial. I love trivia like that.
I tried Allen for Chester Arthur, and when that wasn't accepted I decided my memory was faulty - should have thought about the alternate spelling. Great quiz, although it was harder than I anticipated.
I said 'Allen' when it was 'Alan'. I just guessed common names on the ones that I didn't know, which failed miserably on pretty much everybody except for Eisenhower.
I do genealogy as a hobby, and it's amazing how many males I found on census records with the initials JKP. It took me a while to realize they were named for James Knox Polk. Military heroes were the superstars of their day. The other frequently seen initials which threw me for a while were MDL, (Marquis de Lafayette), FM (Francis Marion - the Swamp Fox of the Revolution) and LD (Lorenzo Dow), a prominent evangelist of the early 1800s.
The results of this quiz are crazy. I got all the ones must frequently guessed (49% and above), and then there is a big drop off to 28% and below, none of which I got. I guess that goes to show which presidents are known for their middle name and which are not. I knew most of the initials of the ones I didn't get (Chester A., James K., Warren G., James A., Rutherford B., Gerald R., etc.) but had no idea what those initials stood for.
It gives me no pleasure to disagree with you as your comments can be and often are very informative. It's just that some of them are beyond the pale, and I firmly believe in a lively debate. We can disagree with-out being disagreeable.
you've been nasty to me without good reason ever since you started responding, over and over and over again, to everything I say here. I don't know why; I suspect it has to do with you finding out I don't believe in the same god you do and taking it personally.
I knew them all, don't know how. If I could free up the space in my brain that all of this knowledge is using, just think what I could accomplish. At least it allows me to accomplish things on Jetpunk.
I find it very fascinating that Truman's "S" stands for two names and is in essence not an initial, but the name itself. Ergo Truman's whole name is Harry S Truman, wherein S is his middle name. I would like if you would make it an answer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman#Early_life,_family,_and_education
It's funny how in some cases, I can't think of the president's name WITHOUT at least the middle initial, like Rutherford B. Hayes, while in other cases, I never even knew there WAS a middle name or initial, as in Herbert Hoover.
Based on available data, it seems like the quality of US presidents may be inversely proportional to how "normal" their middle names are. Though Eisenhower seems to be an outlier.
and Harding would be an outlier on the other end of that spectrum. "John" and "Hussein" match up perfectly, though! Robinette seems to be tracking, as well.
I know so many of their first initials, and I was trying to guess common names for their middle names, but I would have never in a million years guessed Birchard or Gamaliel
The CEO of the hospital system I and much of my family used to work for was a Knox Singleton. Only other time I heard that name apart from that one minor character in Tim Burton's Batman.
Ha! That would be really funny, if the answer to the trivia question "What is the most common Presidential middle name?" ended up being freaking Gamaliel.
i have fond memories of learning all the presidents (up through dubya) in a leappad preview book... the u.s. history section was my favorite, and it's how i learned most of the contemporary presidents' middle names. couldn't ever tell you what the "b" in rutherford b. hayes stood for, though.
Movie Title Antonyms
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Which Facebook likes make you look smart?
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If you didn't enjoy it, then, sorry :( ... maybe try this one instead
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and I think I made a Facebook likes quiz about political orientation, maybe I should have linked to that one instead.
:')
You know that eliminated some people from getting a correct answer.
Can't believe, I missed "Woodrow"...