This thread inspired a discussion about
possible second names for characters, assuming that most of them do have them (a very common thing in the US) and it simply isn't mentioned. In that case, the leading question is often
why it is never mentioned, since we know many of these people fairly well (having seen or heard from them in dozens or hundreds of episodes). That gives us a little bit of information to use to make our assumptions.
(It is worth noting up front that these don't technically have to be their *middle* names. It is possible that the name we know them by is actually their middle name, and the spare is their first name.)
For Connie, my guess is that her 'unused' middle name is inspired by a month, since her father is Bill Kendall. We know several girls or women in Bill's life who are named after months, so presumably it would be one of the unused ones. Of those, only two are conducive to having derivative names. Connie could be an 'Augusta' (or Augustina). This sounds a bit pompous and old-fashioned, and it would explain perfectly well why she never uses the name. This fits the 'summer' theme, since her mother is June and her half-sister is Jules (July). Alternatively, she could be a March. It's a nice crisp name that evokes
Little Women with some people, and it also has the same initial as her grandmother, Mildred. I could see June accepting the name on those terms. The question here would be why the name or at least the initial has never been referred to. I suppose it'd be a reminder of her father in a way that the other known names aren't.
Bart Rathbone, as I discussed with
@Connie G., could be "William Bartholomew Rathbone". Although it's a stretch to say this is a canonical name, it
is derived from AIO facts; Bart is a short form of Bartholomew, and in "The Quality of Mercy", Officer O'Ryan calls him "Bill". I know people say, oh, it's a goof, that doesn't count - but the fact remains that in the show's reality, Officer O'Ryan still called him Bill. They could have edited it, but they didn't; it's a canon thing. The reasonable assumption is that O'Ryan and Mr. Rathbone had some prior acquaintance and he called him by a different nickname. As for the order of names, this flows better than the alternative.
We do know Rodney's middle initial, P. I submit that his name is "Pip".
This would explain why we never hear it; no self-respecting bully could ever let it be known that his name was Pip. It also explains one of his better-known characteristics; he almost always refers to his father as 'Pop', which is apparently not something he was taught, since Bart dislikes it. Rodney might not be smart, but he is witty, so I could see the "pip - pop" connection.
It isn't totally impossible that Eugene's other name could be "Hubert". For some reason he is often (mistakenly?) called Hubert, and it is plausibly the kind of thing his mother (who was interested in name meanings) might have called him; "derived from the Germanic elements hug "heart, mind" and beraht "bright", it is spot-on. If this is true, since Eugene corrects people who refer to him as 'Hubert', then the implication would be that he strongly dislikes this name, for some unknown reason.
If you have any thoughts on these possibilities, ideas about alternatives, or other characters who you think bear a middle name analysis, please let me know; this is a more interesting subject than first meets the eye.
