Quote Quoting cbg
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My father and several of his brothers all used their middle names. I asked my grandfather once why that was, using my uncle Paul as an example.

"Well," he said, "we wanted to call him Paul, so we named him John Paul."

"Why didn't you name him Paul John?" I asked.

You would have to know my grandfather to understand that to this day I do not know if he was serious or not when he answered, "We never thought of that!"
It's fairly common for the Irish to do something similar. They tend to give their children a biblical first name and then actually call them by their middle name or a nickname. My nephew's mother and her sisters all go by their middle names.