As Tom wrote: <<so JSB got his middle name from the first name of the Godfather. Maybe that type of naming is also a custom.>> This has been my experience both in the south and north of Germany, Protestant, and Catholic: The children received a saint's name for their first name and then a middle name, and it was usually the same name as their god-parents'. Sometimes they received the first name from the first godparent, and the second name from the second. In the Catholic church one usually had three god-parents, two of one's sex, and one of the other sex. Many's the time I thought a boy was named for his father, or a girl was named for her mother, and had a look at the god-parents, and saw that it was their names as well. The men were named Johannes (Joan, Johan), Jakob, Josef, Georg, etc., the women Maria, Anna, Catharina, and Elisabeth, and then the popular *middle* names of the time or locale. And they were known by the latter name, or a nickname (Hans for Johann, Stoffel for Christopher, Dirk for Theodor, Nikel for Nicolaus, etc.) The godparents are often relatives, and it pays to figure their names out, too, as it sometimes reveals connections one hadn't considered. It is easy to see how a whole village can soon come to have the same first name!! The closer we get to modern day, the less this rule applies. And in modern day Germany, children get one name, and think it strange that Americans get two. :-) Carol Saint-Clair