On a side note, my wife started including her middle initial every time in her signature after we got married. She wasn’t given a middle name when she was born, so she was thrilled when she was able to use her maiden name as her middle initial. She felt like she’d been missing out.

I guess it’s “Americanese” for titles. Since you can’t be “sir” this or that, you need middle (or first) initials.

I’ve run into several European people, who have pointed this out.

BTW, happy to make your internet acquaintance. Have followed your travails over the years. Hope things are going well for you.

“And what’s with those middle initials anyways? Does anyone actually use them?”

Apparently.

I can understand the need for some level of formality, but since we, as a Church, strongly emphasize our Brother and Sisterhood connection, It would seem more appropriate to use that with our leaders. But even using Brother or Sister at Church seems overly formal when we know each other’s first names.

And to refer to oneself as Brother or Sister so and so really sounds strange to me.

Then, of course, there are those who need no last name at all, such as “Bruce R.”

I also find it interesting that female leadership are using there maiden names as the initial (Ann Monson Dibb).

finally because of the whole initial thing, I found out at an early age that I would never become a GA, my initials are triple K, with the churches race relation history it might not be a good idea.

In my new job, I am working on getting some academic papers published. They want me to use my full first name. It seems much too formal to me, and I’m afraid people will confuse me for my father of the same name.

Personally, I think it’s a silly practice at best, a pretentious practice at worst.

I’d like to go back to a less formal and more more “chummy” address to our leaders. Titles and positions aren’t important in the eternities anyway, are they?

I often hear the same being used in stake conference as we sustain stake presidencies and high councilors…all of a sudden the dude I’m friends with becomes some important public figure!

It sounds kinda funny to be honest, when I hear it in stake conference…like they’re trying really hard to be taken seriously.

The thing with Salt Lake is, I never hear it any other way, so “Gordon B” is the first name and “Hinckley” is the last name (in my mind). It just flows…

I use my middle initial on my business cards. Makes me sound like I should charge more.

Holden Caulfield’s middle initial is “M.” It would make more than an initial to make him seem more worthy of respect, however. This ends the trivia section of this thread. Back to comments from people who use their time more wisely.