‘HOW DID YOU GET A NAME LIKE THAT?’ KIDS ASK

Unmasking the Embarrassing Mysteries of Middle Names

Thank you, television.

Before The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon, the world had little idea of my middle name.

Thomas SHELDON Owens

As I wrote that, I heard my angry mother charging me with yet another kid crime. After all, when the authorities shout your entire name, that’s a formal warning. In other words: You’re busted.

I was a plain, mostly-honest boy growing up. Looking back, I should have been creative growing up.

“What’s my middle name? Guess!” I’d hear in a playground challenge. “You’d never guess in a million years. So, I’ll tell you. Thomas H. Owens. H is for Hercules.”

As the kids would shrug, I’d add: “That’s my middle name, because my parents wanted me to be brave and strong.”

Yeah. I could have sold any other boy at school that heroic history. But I felt obliged to tell the truth.

So many boys had middle names based on the Bible. (Lots of guys in there to choose from. But good luck spelling some of them!) The book of Matthew snared my little brother.

Me fibbing in front of all these Bible-linked kids seemed especially bad.

The main reason boys got middle names?

As a consolation prize for a grandpa.

I knew that a mom and dad wanted to name their own kid, just like kids wanted to name their own pet.

But a grandparent wanted some connection to the newcomer.

As a boy, I imagined that the parents told the two grandpas to flip a coin to see which one of their names would be the boy’s middle name.

Or, they arm-wrestled for it?

Speaking of wrestling, I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t have a middle name honoring a favorite wrestler.

Sure. Like Thomas “Stomper” Owens?

As an adult, I learned that some middle names were nods to celebrities a mom and dad admired. Nonetheless, all of these parents sided with human names.

Comic books were full of cool superhero names. Those boys would have felt chosen to live up to the ideals of those role models.

“I’m Tom,” I’d say. “But everyone calls me by my middle name of FLASH!”

Whatever the reason, I felt that parental politics was involved in all boy names.

In third grade, I mustered up the courage to ask my mom why I was a “Sheldon.” My parent made no sense to me.

“It was a name I liked,” she began. “A guy in my office had that name when we had you.”

I inhaled. I wanted to know if he saved all his co-workers from a burning building. Maybe? Or he became a zillionaire who gave everyone in the office new cars?

Mom shrugged. “I don’t know anything about him. We weren’t friends. In fact, I don’t think I ever talked to him.

“I just liked the sound of his name.”

Determined to have some identification with my middle name, I looked for other early 1970s men who could give me middle-name pride.

The only celebrity I learned about was Sheldon Leonard.

He played movie criminals and tough guys for 20 years. I knew his name because I was a kid who watched all the credits on The Andy Griffith Show. Leonard was the producer.

I looked him up again recently, afraid I was too tough on the tough guy. After all, this was no full-blown movie star.

Nevertheless, the finding was substantial. This man never ran from his middle name. He was born Leonard Sheldon Bershad on Feb. 22, 1907.

I waited years for a middle-name revelation. The historic message reached me in a public library. Before I reached middle school (called “Junior High” in the olden days), I saw the future. I wanted to be seen as a stately Sheldon. Didn’t American leaders always display all their names?

Our 33rd president, Harry Truman, gave me a brainstorm.

Truman’s parents did the age-old dance of choosing between the two sides of their family for a name. There was no agreement over which grandfather, Anderson Shipp Truman or Solomon Young, would win.

History was made on that birthdate, May 8, 1884. Harry’s birth certificate listed only the letter “S.” By not choosing, the parents honored both grandfathers.

Throughout his life, scholars noted that Truman would not put a period after his middle “name.” In Sesame Street-like style, Truman’s moniker is not an abbreviation, but his own letter.

That was good enough for me. From that day forward, “Thomas S Owens” became my answer to anyone who asked me for my FULL name.

Thank you, Mister President.

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