Brian Laird on W.N.C. and for our last 15 minutes or so today, think about your middle name.

Think about your friend's middle names and the middle names you chose for your children.

What stories, what intimate secrets are contained in those

names. We're going to end the show on this kind of lighter note. What has us

contemplating middle names? It's a short essay in the Atlantic by the writer Michael Waters. The names, he writes, can

be Trojan horses of meaning about ourselves or our ancestors, couriers of overlooked parts of our identity.

And that often includes of course a family history or a celebration of a cultural background.

Middle names can also reflect parents' creative aspirations or embody values and traits that parents wish to pass on

Michael writes middle names can't telegraph all of who we are but maybe sharing them feel so intimate because they carry a small piece of us.

So for the last 15 minutes or so today, we'll talk about the significance and intimacy of middle names.

We'll open up the phones in a second,

but let me say hello to Michael Waters,

writer and author of the forthcoming book,

The Other Olympians, fascism, queerness, and the making of modern sports, that's coming out this June.

His piece in the Atlantic appears under the headline, Middle names of more than you think.

Michael, welcome to WNYC.

Thank you for having me.

And listeners, do you find that middle names

are an intimate way of knowing a friend or a loved one like our guest posits.

Right away we'll open up the phones.

What does your middle name mean to you?

Who wants to shout out your middle name and how often do you use it or just avoid it. I know some people

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