Why no middle name?
 

Feeling paranoid, but when I just booked my flight on BA website I had nowhere to add a middle name (which is on my passport).

I know I've booked flights on this site before but cannot recall anything about the middle name.

I tried searching threads but whenever I try to search this forum only I end up with the entire site still.

appreciate any reassurance/advice

I have 2 middle names. No room on the boarding card for them.

As far as BA is concerned middle names aren't an issue, it causes more problems than it is worth given the presence of matronymics in the Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese world. So first name and family name is all BA needs (and even they don't have to match the passport precisely, though it's best that they do so). If they allowed for one middle name, they'd have to allow for those with many middle names and you have to draw the line somewhere. You can get a middle name on BA, some booking systems feed it through via concatenating the first names. Which then gets mangled but it's usually obvious who is involved.

Approximately a hundred million people only have one name, over a million are in this position in the EU alone, and there are systems in place for that for both airlines and API (either repeat the name or add "NoNameGiven" in one box).

Thank you! I appreciate the speedy (and logical) responses.

North America (my more familiar areas) are strict with middle names (in my experience)

fantastic. Thank you. Have a great day!

I can say that having no middle name - and thus not filling in the field - often gets questioned in the States.

I usually put my middle name in the field for First Name or Given Name (just in case of any issues) when booking. But like others have said, I've also not had any issues with BA but it's just a habit I have especially when travelling with other carriers.

E.g.

Given Name: FIRSTNAME MIDDLENAME
Surname: SURNAME

I have just one middle name, or middle initial in US documentation I think.

Have I condemned by children to a world of pain by giving them 2 middle names?

I don't have a middle name and haven't been questioned about it once in 20+ years in the States. /shrug.

Mrs Wilsnunn has five names plus her surname and she never understood what to do when booking flight tickets. Now I do all of her flight bookings for her and I always put her first two names (the ones she actually uses on a regular basis) as her first name in the system and her surname in the surname field. The remaining names which are on her passport but not on the booking haven’t caused any issue so far.

I have two middle names and moved to the USA. I'm resigned to losing any hint of my second middle name and being for most American purposes merely rps instead of rpjs, but other than that it's never been an issue.

“we can’t decide what middle names to give to our daughter and we have a shortlist. Let’s just use them all and draw straws as to which will be her first name”

Five, wow :)

i think when you book the flights they do not ask for a middle name

i think when you go to add APIS data, passport number etc, you get the opportunity to put i there

The IATA ticketing standard is two names. Those carriers which provide for titles, middle names and the rest are all doing so as fluff which causes more hassles than it is worth.

No airline cares about middle names. Not in Europe and not in North America.

I have a middle name and never put it on the ticket as I only have my first name on my FFP.
I have never, never been questioned in the USA.

A middle name on a ticket is not required in the US, afaik.

I wasn't clear. It's never come up in relation to air travel, but in other common interactions involving ID, like banking or insurance. And it's not obtrusive. Just the "no middle name?" And most every one I know has a middle name, so I get the question.

Yes but you are unique in that your first name and middle name appear to actually be FIRSTNAME MIDDLENAME so you are safe no matter what.

Asian airlines, and particularly Cathay Pacific, care about middle names due to most Chinese names being three characters. There are fewer family names in Chinese than there are in western names, and the first character of the given name within a family is often the same for all children.

Mrs Aus ATC has a hyphenated first name, but no middle name. Invariably a drama, as many systems cannot accommodate the "-". We either just book her with the first part (by which she is commonly known), or sometimes string the 2 parts together.

exactly the same here, and exactly the same when I’ve travelled on Chinese airlines too (mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan alike). I’ve never been on any airline which has raised issue about middle name not being on the booking despite it showing on my passport nd I fly about 30 different airlines every year.

incidentally I hate it when hosts have booked my ticket and included middle name or title as you then need to enter the exact combination they chose under first name to retrieve a booking...

I knew a guy in the RAF who had 6 or 7 first names. He was known as "A to Z B*******"" ;).

My pet hate on name conventions is using firstname middle initial lastname such as Jane B Gomez. I see it a lot in the US. To me it is neither fish nor fowl. Use the name or don't use it but putting the middle initial in is just ugly.

And then some people introduce themselves in that form too. My middle name has the same number of syllables as its initial, so it's not even saving any breath.

Same same. Never ever been an issue

That may be true, but on my many flights with SQ, CX, and TG, I have never volunteered, nor been asked, about any middle names.

The first character of the given name can be a generational name, at least in some areas. Although there are separate male/female generational names. In the area my wife is from it is the custom for the paternal grandfather to give the child their name. So all of a grandfather's son's children will have the same surname and same male/female generational name. My wife's father has plenty of brothers, with children, so she has many cousins with the same surname/first character. If Asian airlines allowed one character to mismatch like European/American airlines tickets would be transferable quite widely through the family.

The above discussion on the intricacies of names in different cultural contexts reminds me of this nearly ten year old blog post, Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names.

The whole thing is worth a read if you’re interested in this kind of thing, and is too long to quote fully, but it is a witty exposition of the assumptions programmers (and all of us) instinctively make on this topic due to our own cultural backgrounds.

I have a middle name but I never use it; neither for air travel - I have never had any issues (I have taken hundreds of flights). Adding the middle name only complicates things.

I guess in the past the language of “booking name must match exactly as it appears on passport” is where I’ve been concerned.

Understandable, but in reality even small mistakes (1-2 characters wrong) are routinely accepted.

Dont believe everything you read. Yet another example of rules that are not enforced and nobody care about.

All my work bookings through AMEX end up on BA with my first and second names concatenated without a space or capital letter on the second name. Firstnamesecondname Surname.

I use the abbreviated version (Tim) of my full first name although my passport of course has the full version. The abbreviated version is what is entered on the BA EC therefore this is what BA knows me as and the BPs always have this printed on. On BA it is never an issue (except for one rather pedantic check-in agent at GOA) but never, ever anywhere else on BA's network. Even using SSCI, BA's systems are OK with my passport having the full version but the booking being the abbreviated one

But on pretty much all other airlines it is always rejected, particularly on Flybe and Swiss whereby it is insisted the full version is used on any booking otherwise the computer says "no"

I suspect that in practice, this language is more intended to prompt Ms Alexandra Foster to not book as "Sasha Foster" even though that's what she's always been called by her family and friends.

My middle name is on my passport but I have never used it since I left school 45 years ago and it has never been an issue in the US or anywhere else in the world.

yep. Or I get the NMN in that field which sometimes leads to other questions.

I have a middle name in my passport but have only ever entered it in the ESTA and similar forms, never for a flight booking. No problem so far.
Funny sidenote: I was issued a credit card once that had not only my name above the cc# but also a good part of my address.

My global entry only has my first and last names in spite of my middle name being on my passport. In fact, because of this I've had to take the middle name out of my reservations and pax profile with AA in order to be recognized for TSA Precheck. So, not a problem in the US

I have no middle name neither does anyone in my family (my grandad used to say "you have 2 names. Isn't that enough?"). I once worked for a US company where their HR system couldn't cope with someone without a middle name - so I was issued with one!

I have the dubious honour of having five surnames, one of which is three words long (de Las Mellizas) and two of which are hyphenated. All in my full name is 61 characters long. Plays merry hell with every system let alone airlines. Fortunately, I have an observation added to my passport that I only regularly use two surnames, but those are the hyphenated ones so it still doesn’t work well with many systems.

That said, I’ve never had an issue with my middle name not being on a ticket nor my (listed) surnames being concatenated without the hyphen.