What's with the middle name?

When you think about media coverage of people with three names, you’d can’t help think of famous acts of violence.

The conspiracy against Caesar: Marcus Junius Brutus
The “Washington sniper”: John Allen Muhammad
President Kennedy attempted assassin: Richard Paul Pavlick
President Kennedy assassin: Lee Harvey Oswald
President Ford attempted assassin #1: Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme
President Ford attempted assassin #2: Sara Jane Moore
President Carter attempted assassin: Raymond Lee Harvey
President Clinton attempted assassin: Frank Eugene Corder
Charged with Stafford abduction: Teri Lynn McClintic
Convicted of assisting at Mayerthorpe shooting: Shawn William Hennesey

Here’s a grab bag of famous people to consider: Salvador Dalí, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Amelia Earhart, Anne Frank, Billy Graham, Ernest Hemingway, Karl Marx, Ted Turner… There are no middle names in media reports covering their activities, even though they all have them.

Only Alexander Graham Bell and Martin Luther King spring quickly to mind as being people who are perennially referred to by three names and didn’t have an infamous brush with the law.

It is very subtle, but it does permeate, nevertheless, the coverage of “Darcy Allan Sheppard” (see prior post “Question of the day” September 2, 2009).

MRM