Re middle names in general, rather than ones that appear later in life... In some parts of Argyll, particularly Kintyre, there was a custom related to middle names which might have been designed to confuse family historians. The FIRST child baptised by a minister, after he took up his post in a new parish, would be given the minister's name as his or her middle names. This can sometimes lead to a child of Argyll parents having up to three extra middle names - none of which might have any family significance at all. I've come across an example of this while researching my own family, but because the child in question was not related to me, I did not note the names - sorry. I do not think that this custom was very long-lived, but my mother remembers a Carradale man born in the early 1900s who was given the non-local middle names of Somerville McLeod - the name of the minister who baptised him. She described it as "the done thing" at one time. Best regards Sarah