I discovered this in my history class today, and it ties in neatly with our caucus. I will count a president's middle name if it was highly unusual on a male in a western country, and I will not count ones that are non-existent.

No Middle Name

George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
Andrew Jackson
John Tyler, Jr.
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore (Actually has TWO awesome names.)
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan, Jr.
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley, Jr.
Theodore Roosevelt

AWESOME Middle Name

QUINCY, John Quincy Adams
VAN, Martin Van Buren
KNOX, James K. Polk
S., Ulysses S. Grant - Had no actual middle name, made the S. up because he thought it looked cool.
BIRCHARD, Rutherford B. Hayes
ABRAM, James A. Garfield
GROVER, S. Grover Cleveland
WOODROW, T. Woodrow Wilson
GAMALIEL, Warren G. Harding
DELANO, FDR
S, Harry S Truman - Just S. Not an abbreviation, just the letter, yes, given by his parents.
FITZGERALD, JFK
BAINES, Lyndon Johnson
MILHOUS, Richard Nixon
RUDOLPH, Gerald Ford
HERBERT WALKER, George H.W. Bush
WALKER, George W. Bush
HUSSEIN, Barack Obama

Average Middle Name

HENRY, William Henry Harrison
ALAN, Chester A. Arthur
HOWARD, William Taft
CALVIN, J. Calvin Coolidge
CLARK, Herbert Hoover
DAVID, Dwight D. Eisenhower
EARL, Jimmy Carter
WILSON, Ronald Reagan
JEFFERSON, Bill Clinton

18/27 presidents with middle names had middle names that are awesome. That's statistically highly improbable, and I thought it good to share.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 18 2009, 9:19 pm by Richard Nixons Head.

It's Barack, not Barrack. Despite it being a first name.

Delano and Fitzgerald for the win.

Hey. **** you! Kiss my average ass!

Nicknames are awesome too!

Hey Obama, suck one.

In four short years he met his every goal
He seized the whole southwest from Mexico
Made sure the tariffs fell
And made the English sell the Oregon territory
He built an independent treasury
Having done all this he sought no second term
But precious few have mourned the passing of
Mister James K. Polk, our eleventh president
Young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump

Truman's is fun.
Knox (sometimes spelled NOx) is an arbitrary nickname I acquired among some people. ;o

John QUNICY Adams, lol.......

If this post ends in 9 Richard Nixon is now a meme.

Could not resist.

Tbh, they really aren't cool. At all.

I beg to differ:

I just thought it was neat that such a high percentage of presidents have odd middle names.

Maybe change topic to "odd" instead of awesome? Good thing you didn't take what i said as an insult.

Yea, it has a pretty cool story but still kinda lame.

Now Ulysses Hugecock Grant, Thats an awesome name. Would make me do a double take because i would think his first and middle name said "Useless Hugecock".

How dare you make fun of one of the best presidents that used to be a war general!?

Grant's presidency was full of scandals and corruption, some of which nearly killed the country. Grant was not cut out to be a politician.

Eisenhower and Washington were the best Presidents who were Generals.

He did attempt to secure voter's rights for blacks and keep the militant wing of the Democratic Party (ie, THE ORIGINAL KKK) from seizing violently seizing power and stripping blacks of their rights... of course, he ultimately wasn't very successful. He also helped work out some of the credit crises after the civil war, creating a national currency, and arresting counterfeiters.

He could've been a great president, but he was ultimately a failed president... still, there are alot worse, and he wasn't really involved in the scandals, they were his cabinet members.

I vouch for awesome middle names. Gamaliel, to battle with the Orken hordes!

Actually, they do. If you tape record their quacks, slow them down, and play them backwards, you will hear their middle name. If you run out to the cornfield and shout it before midnight, the duck will die and turn into a freshly-baked loaf of pumpernickel, but if you do not, you will die after 7 years when you're run over by a mysterious red Ford F150.

Conservative democrats/"Solid South" != Modern Democrats to those who don't know.

Yeah, the party lines and philosophies basically flipped in the 1900's (and the Republicans picked up the "racist white" vote with Nixon).

I'm amazed at how few people know this. Modern Republicans love to take credit for Lincoln, but Lincoln would've had nothing to do with the current party.