When I worked for Imperial Oil, everyone was deemed to have a middle name. This was in relation to print-out identification. The "header" would have the person's name in large letters - first name, middle initial and last name. These big format perforated print-outs would be separated and then sorted alphabetically.
Likely they were concerned about distinguishing between people with the same name. There were two fellows in IT in Imperial with the same name. And what if one of them didn't have a middle name? When a person didn't have a middle name, it was designated X. So whenever I see an X as the middle initial I am intrigued.
Who has a name starting with X? Lots of people from lots of places do. The easy one is Xavier. There's even a variant of this name Xzavier. Now I consider that strange. But then there's Xaver - the German form, and Xavior, an English rare form, and Xaviera the feminine form of Xavier. And the diminutive form? Xavi- that's Catalan.
There are 21,711 people in the U.S. with the first name Xavier. It is the 1318th most popular first name. It is trending towards popularity as shown by babnameshub.com. There are lots of baby name websites.
So back to names starting with X, the list I looked through had 79 names starting with X. This name has intrigue and mystery to me as the place originals were unknown to me, including Asturian, Hmong, and Galician.
I wonder if there is anywhere that still has a "need" for a designated middle initial. Certainly the latest addition to the Royal Family has a middle name - Diana. And the first name? Lilibet or Lili for short. Lots of history in those names.
Lilycrest Gardens this week - it looks wonderful this year.
