C is for … C

Although I don’t remember exactly when the conversation took place, I recall well how it went:

     Me: Why don’t you put a period after your middle initial when you sign your name?
     Dad: Because it’s not an abbreviation.
     Me: What do you mean? What’s your middle name?
     Dad: I don’t have a middle name. I have a middle initial: C.

At the time I found the notion of someone having only a middle initial odd, sort of “backwoodsy” and “poor,” but since then I have learned that the practice has a long tradition in the Buller line and Mennonite history.

As you probably know, Grandpa and Grandma’s kids were given the names Matilda C, Esther C, Daniel C, Darlene C, Carl C, Wayne C, Ruth C, and Alma C. The C stood for Cornelius, Grandpa’s given name.

Likewise, Grandpa and most of of his brothers and sisters had a middle initial P, for their father Peter. The one known exception was Peter E, whose E presumably stood for his mother’s maiden name: Epp. Why would Peter E have been given that middle initial? It may be that the first Peter born into that family, who died eight days after birth, was known as Peter P (although the Buller Family Record [BFR] does not list any middle initial) and that, when Peter and Margaretha decided to name a second son Peter, they chose to give him a different middle initial.

Grandpa’s father Peter also had P for a middle initial because his father was likewise named Peter (D). Things become a little messier with Peter P’s siblings, since the BFR lists three children with no middle initial (Johann, Sarah, and Maria, who died at birth); five with P, representing their father’s name (Peter, Cornelius, Jacob, Heinrich, Abraham); one with S, probably for their mother Sarah’s maiden name, Siebert (David); and one with M, likely in memory of the Maria who died at birth (a second daughter named Maria).

Peter D’s father was named David, which explains his middle initial; the same is true for his two brothers (Benjamin, David), but the BFR lists no middle initials for his three sisters (Helena, Elisabeth, Maria). An online genealogical source for David Buller complicates matters further. Not only does it move Heinrich and Sarah from David’s second family to his first (which deserves its own discussion); it also lists all the boys as having “David Z” as their middle name + initial and all the girls as having “D Z” as their double middle initials. The Z is easily understood: it stands for Zielke, their mother Helena’s maiden name. Why the boys have their father’s full name plus their mother’s maiden name initial is less clear. Was this perhaps a standard convention in Mennonite circles during the mid-nineteenth century?

At any rate, the practice of giving Buller children only the middle initial of their father’s first name ended with Grandpa and Grandma’s kids (please speak up if you know differently). Too bad! As someone who has had several women point out that I have the “same” middle name as they do (spelled differently, of course), I think I would prefer to have C instead.