Characters' Middle Names & Family Members' Names

[caj]

I'm wondering if middle names had faded away by the 30th/31st century? I don't ever remember any Legion member being given a middle name.

There was, of course, their founder Rene Jacques Brande. So maybe not.

[MadFacedKid]

Pretty sure the first Aquaman’s middle name isn’t Joseph. In Young Justice he goes by Orin as well

[Tzigone]

Pretty sure the first Aquaman’s middle name isn’t Joseph. In Young Justice he goes by Orin as well

Well, the first Aquaman's name was "Aquaman" - his father named him that.

[Adekis]

Obviously, we know Clark's parents are... Jonathan & Martha (or Eben & Sarah on Earth-2)

In actual fact, on Earth 2 their names are John and Mary, at least according to Secret Origins vol 2 # 1. I'm not actually aware how much detail they're given in earlier stories, as admittedly that comic comes out in 1986, which is about as late as an Earth 2 Superman story can get! But I expect that they either have the same names or no name at all in earlier stories like "Superboy Meets Clark Kent" from Superboy vol 2 # 15, which I've never managed to get ahold of... Most Earth 2 stories don't have much focus on the origin.

Eben and Sarah are their names in George Lowther's Superman novel and in both the Superman serials and Adventures of Superman show.

I always thought their names should have been Eben and Sarah on Earth 2 as well, to help contrast with Earth 1 alongside Jor-L and Lora, but in Superman # 1, Mr. Kent isn't given a name but Mrs. Kent is called Mary, so I guess in later Earth 2 stories like , the writers wanted to follow that. Mary stayed the same, and John was chosen probably because of its similarity to Jonathan on Earth 1.

Of course, it's not always easy to explain that Golden Age Superman and Earth 2 Superman are not actually the same character, the latter is designed to invoke the former and to be as different from Earth 1 Superman as they could manage. That desire for distinction is why Clark works at the Daily Star for his entire life on Earth 2 but in the actual Golden Age there are plenty of comics with Perry White and the Planet, or why Earth 2 Luthor has red hair all the way up until he dies in the Crisis, but most Golden Age Luthor stories, he's actually bald.

With that in mind, I can't think of any reason why Earth 2 Superman's parents shouldn't be Eben and Sarah, but oh well, I guess it's not surprising that Roy Thomas had different priorities.

EDIT: Er... I guess none of that was about middle names, was it? Oops.

[Digifiend]

Senior - it's Barbara's mom/aunt who is also named Barbara (and/or Earth 2 Mrs. Gordon). I kinda sorta wish they'd just make her Eileen and be done with it. Not really fond of same-name characters. But she's not around (as far as I know - not reading Batgirl), so I guess it doesn't matter. Silver age she was Thelma, and I think that's Barbara's birth mother's name in post-COIE.

Wasn't Commissioner Gordon originally Barbara's uncle, retconned to father later on? That means Barbara senior was originally her aunt, not her mother, which explains the usage of Thelma in the 60s. In other words, Thelma and Barbara Sr are not the same person.

[Tzigone]

Wasn't Commissioner Gordon originally Barbara's uncle, retconned to father later on? That means Barbara senior was originally her aunt, not her mother, which explains the usage of Thelma in the 60s. In other words, Thelma and Barbara Sr are not the same person.

No. Gordon was originally her father (in the silver and bronze age). At that time, his wife (Barbara's mother) was named Thelma, to my understanding. Then, in post-COIE, Jim became her uncle (and possibly adoptive father, not sure, since she called him "dad" and Jim was married to Barbara, but I don't know if she did any adopting which is why I called her mom/aunt - also Jim may have have been Babs' bio father via an liaison with his brother's wife, thanks to Devin Grayson). In post-COIE, her birth mother was name Thelma.

As far as I know, the name "Barbara" for Jim's wife was originally introduced in the bronze age for Earth 2 Jim Gordon (who's wife had only been called "Mrs. Gordon" before). I can't be sure, because I can't recall timing, but I'd taken it as shout-out sort of thing, since he only had a son on that world. But then post-COIE came along and for some reason that kept that as wife-name.

But it is messy, and maybe I have it wrong.

[Confuzzled]

Wasn't Commissioner Gordon originally Barbara's uncle, retconned to father later on?

He was always the dad. However, I think post-Crisis (correct me if I'm wrong) had a crappy retcon where Thelma was Jim's brother's wife and Jim had an affair with her (!), leading to Babs' birth and then Barbara Sr. adopting her with Jim once Thelma and her husband died. Thankfully that nonsense seems to have been re-retconned from Flashpoint onward where Barbara Sr. is back to being Babs' birth mother.

[Zaresh]

I don't even know where these all come from, but someone else said Barbara's middle name was Joan.

The male Robin quartet has always had those names, as far as I know, Damian being the only one without a middle name.

Jason's parent names had changed, though. For the father, you have (iirc) Joseph pre-COIE and Willis post-COIE. For his mother, you had Catherine pre-COIE, Catherine for her adoptive mother and Sheila for his birth mother post-COIE, and Catherine again as his birth and only mother post-Flashpoint. We also have been given with Rebirth that he's called after his grandfather, whatever that will mean in the stories to come. Apparently, his grandmother on his father side is Faye Gunn, and he also has a cousin with the same name.

[Slimybug]

Wasn't Commissioner Gordon originally Barbara's uncle, retconned to father later on? That means Barbara senior was originally her aunt, not her mother, which explains the usage of Thelma in the 60s. In other words, Thelma and Barbara Sr are not the same person.

Barbara Gordon/Batgirl was always portrayed as Jim Gordon's daughter. I believe it was Frank Miller who's responsible for all the confusion. In Batman: Year One (just after Crisis), Jim is portrayed as celebrating the birth of his first child, a boy named James. This threw continuity for a loop, since, even if he had a daughter right after, she wouldn't grow up in time to be Batgirl in the short few years that was supposed to have passed since Year One.
It's possible the editors had intended to erase Batgirl from existence, as they had Supergirl. This might explain why Gordon's wife's name was said here (I believe for the first time) to be Barbara, as a sort of shout-out.

However, they didn't end up erasing Batgirl from existence. It was to fix this continuity blip that someone came up with the idea of retconning it so that Barbara was Jim's niece, and that, after the events of Year One, he adopted her upon the death of her parents. This would seem to retroactively be the case for the Silver Age version of the character as well as the Post-Crisis.
Apparently someone at DC wanted Jim to REALLY be her dad, so, years later, they wrote another retcon that Jim had an affair with her mother.

I don't pay any attention to New 52, but from what I've seen, in it, Barbara is his biological daughter and more of a peer with her brother James.