My NASCAR jokes aside, a lot of southern males do have some interesting combinations of first and middle names as a tribute to family memebers, often a grandmother's maiden name becomes someone's middle name, etc.

With this talk of syllables, I guess it's good to mention that whether there are a lot or a few syllables, it makes a difference in the feel of it. Short sounds feel very masculine and conservative, like John Paul Smith. Lots of syllables are more unusual and can seem either old fashioned or flashy... eg Esteban Theodore Rodriguez.

I like longer, more complicated names, they're familiar to me. My old name: xxx xxx xx-xx. New name: xxx xxx/x xx-xx. My dad's name: xxx xxx xx-xxx. A cousin's name: x xx xx xx-xxx-xx. (Latino relatives, multiple hyphens and several middle names are common) So, it fits my family history. You might want to figure out the pattern of your family names and try to copy the rhythm.

With all this syllable talk I never thought of it till now but my first middle and last name all have 6 letters and 2 syllables each.  Andrew Thomas xxx-xxx

I'm totally all for the look at baby names ideas. That's what I did to choose a middle name. I just said each name to see what it sounded like with the first name I have chosen (the masculine version of my birth name) until I found one I liked, you know one that flows well. Plus I wanted to keep my initials the same, so that made a more specific area of the alphabet to look.

Kyle James
Kyle Andrew
Kyle Robert

I don't know. I'm thinking that a traditional name would work best with Kyle.

I don't have to change my first name because it's unisex, but I'm changing my current middle name (eileen) to elliot. after reading you guys's posts i realize i put barely any thought into it. I just chose it because they sound alike.

It took me along time to come up with a middle name to that went with my choose name Jayden in the under I came up with Jayden Adams it took awhile but it's finding a name which matches who you are.

oh names! I went through a million ideas before deciding to keep my given middle name, which is a unisex name.

I do like Kieran though, original poster!

I haven't figured out a middle name either. I picked Evan as my first name, and my last name is a 4-syllable Scottish monstrosity that starts with H and ends in -ton. So I've been going through "bland traditional names that don't end in '-t' or '-n'." So far I'm working with Michael, James, and David as my top 3 picks, with James being the likely winner (I wanted Andrew, but that just ends up with way too many a's and n's for one name). I figure my middle name will be whatever I'm in the mood for when I fill out the paperwork at the courthouse, and I'll get used to it.

I think most names probably sound funny when we imagine them being 'ours.' It takes time to get used to a new name.

My chosen names are Eric Daniel [lastname].
But, because of the "ric" in Eric, I'd like to go by Ricci (richie).

It's a normal enough sounding name.

-Ricci

I'm in a bit of a struggle for a name too even though I was lucky in the fact that I was born with a gender neutral first and middle name that have belonged to men in my family in the past. My first name, though, sounds incredibly feminine to me due to the weird "ay" sound in the middle. It drives me crazy whenever I present as male that I apparently pass, but I have such a feminine-sounding name. Have little to no problems with my middle name though.

I may just end up adding a name like "Don/Donnie", "Nicholas", or "Allen" in front of my name to where it becomes XX XX X XX.

Or I may just have those names as typically-used nicknames, but not legal names.

Coming up with a middle name was quite hard for me, because I wanted to preserve my initials and the number of letters in my name, if possible.  Might be odd, but it was important to me.  I finally found a name that fit, but with the talk of syllables here I realized that although the number of letters is the same, my name went from the syllables being 3-4-2 to 2-2-2.  I'd never thought about there being a syllable difference between male and female names before.