stuck in the middle

I'm a lucky man. Fortune has given me the opportunity to be married to a woman as manically obsessed with the minute and seemingly insignificant facets of life as I am. The other day, she turned to me and expressed her latest curiosity: the middle name, it's function and origin. When did we go from being Bob, son of Joe or Sam of Toledo or Aaron the Basket Weaver to Thomas Alva Edison? I did not know, and my bullshit interpolations, though logically sound, did not convince her. I would have to prevail upon the search engines if I were to provide any satisfaction (because, as we all know, if it's on the internet, it's got to be true).

Unlike in previous searches, I did use a specific phrase search in the hope of getting better results -- for once, I'm actually looking for real information rather than testing the reactions of Google.com. Of course, at least on the first page of results from my query, this information is lacking. Thank you internet -- I'll try again later.

Query"the middle name"
7/12/2005

Middle Name: Wikipedia
      Tells us a little bit about the surface, but not too much about the meaning.

Answers.com: middle name
     Cribbed from wikipedia, an amplification of somewhat useless information: SEE the rationale page in this site.

Middle Names at Keep Kids Healthy.
      This tells us that middle names are important, but expectant parents should be mindful that the initials they give their child should not create an unfortunate acronym.

Encyclopedia.Laborlawtalk.com?
      Directs to a blank page.

Top Ten Hints from Baby Names
      Ugh! Please. People. Stop writing top ten lists for the sake of writing top ten lists.

The Car Connection
      Even cars now have middle names.

Methods
      For manipulating data strings. In our case, how to strip a middle name.

Middle Name/Initial Display
      CalPoly page for ORACLE.

Vietnamese Names
      The structure of Vietnames names.

UAE White pages
      Oh those Arab Emirates and their middle names.