The middle name doesn't have to be significant. I have 2 examples in my one-name study of Micklethwaites where Curtis is used as a middle name. My contact from that branch tells me that the name was firstly given to the son by the father who had a friend of that name - the later example was a nephew of the first. I believe that middle names were also sometimes "derived" from godparents, as well as from female lines. None of these explain Benjamin Disraeli Micklethwaite and his brother Stafford Northcote Micklethwaite :-) HTH Andy. At 14:48 13/01/2014, Elizabeth Lee Pugh wrote: >The middle name that has had me wondering and unable to figure out ever >since I started my hobby of genealogy is Russell. Not an unusual or >uncommon name I know, but for the life of me I cannot find any reason for it >in my family. ...