Penguins Have Middle-Names.

I'll come out and say it: About a month back I was cleaning my room.

I know Mom, you're flabbergasted. You've probably fallen out of your chair in surprise. You're probably making fish-out-of-water motions with your mouth.

"Huzzah!" you cry, pumping your fist in the air, scaring the cat you were previously stroking, causing him to fly off the end of the arm rest and run off indignantly. "Hannah Rachel is not as much of a pig as I had so wrongly assumed!"

I'm here to celebrate with you. Let us throw the confetti bombs and sing Auld Lang Syne--and yes, I did have to Google what the name of the song was. 

But when we're done celebrating, I will once again be cleaning my room. Which, conveniently, brings me back to my story. 

I was scraping cat hair off of my favorite sweater, thinking about pseudonyms.

Now, for anyone who doesn't know what a pseudonym is, I'm here to explain it. A pseudonym is like a pen name; something that isn't your name, yet can be referenced back to you. Dr. Suess (real name: Theodor Geisel) is a pseudonym. J.K. Rowling (real name: Joanne Rowling) is a pseudonym. And please, if I must elaborate into pop stars, Lady Gaga (real name: Stefani Germanotta) is a pseudonym.

Are you good?

Anyway, I was thinking about pen names.

My pen name on here is Hannah Rachel. Though it actually is my real name, I still consider it a pen name, because nobody calls me Hannah Rachel in real life. To everyone else, I'm just Hannah. Not Hannah Rachel.

Which got me to thinking about middle names. 

I don't know if I'm the only person who does this, but when I'm thinking of words, I usually visualize them in my head. The way they are spelled pops up immediately.

I've lived a good, solid fourteen years with the same middle name. But for the life of me, I couldn't decide how Rachel was spelled.

Is it Rachel, or Racheal? Or maybe it's Rachael. My brain mused, folding the sweater and stuffing it into my top dresser drawer, later to be worn with a black-and-white striped skirt. Or maybe it's something weirder, like Racshel.

It got to the point where I just about asked my mom about the matter. But at the last minute, I pushed it down and continued cleaning my room.

But my point is: How important are middle names?

Are they just a blip on the radar?

Lots of people don't have middle names, and they live nice, long, happy lives just like the rest of us. We don't even put them in zoos and gawk at them.  We don't discriminate against them or anything. 

Heck, penguins don't have middle names! And they don't even care!