Puzzled by high number of cricketers with two or more first names

[steve121157]

I've thought about this for many years without discussing it with anyone, so tonight I decided to mention it to a few people in my local pub.
It's about a very high number of cricketers [past and present] having two or even three initials before their surname ... famous examples are BC Lara, IT Botham, APE Knott, RGD Willis and SK Warne.
[Anyone with the ICC 2002 PC game will be used to this when editing player photos]
Of the two current Ashes teams, only Brett Lee and Andrew Flintoff have one first name.
The most I know of is four, belonging to Chaminda Vaas which is WPUJ Chamindar Vaas.

Most of the people I talked with said it was very common in any walk of life and that the majority of people have two or more christian names... I'm not entirely convinced about this and have always been especially surprised at the number of cricketers with two or more initials.. I joked that when people become cricketers they must have to add an initial or two to their names.

None of my family ...that is myself,my Mother ,my late father or my two sisters have or have had a middle name
What do members on this forum think about this?
I'm interested to know other views about this.

Top 50 or so in the Frizzell Division One Batting averages... notice that about 48 players have two or more initials.

P J Franks
(Nottinghamshire)
E C Joyce
(Middlesex)
D J Thornely
(Surrey)
P D Trego
(Middlesex)
M R Ramprakash
(Surrey)
M W Goodwin
(Sussex)
S P Fleming
(Nottinghamshire)
D J Hussey
(Nottinghamshire)
I K Pathan
(Middlesex)
S C Ganguly
(Glamorgan)
S R Watson
(Hampshire)
I R Bell
(Warwickshire)
S A Newman
(Surrey)
A D Brown
(Surrey)
R W T Key
(Kent)
O A Shah
(Middlesex)
D J Bicknell
(Nottinghamshire)
J M Kemp
(Kent)
M J Walker
(Kent)
M van Jaarsveld
(Kent)
J E R Gallian
(Nottinghamshire)
T J Murtagh
(Surrey)
C J Adams
(Sussex)
M T G Elliott
(Glamorgan)
L C Parker
(Warwickshire)
S M Katich
(Hampshire)
E T Smith
(Middlesex)
C M W Read
(Nottinghamshire)
J W M Dalrymple
(Middlesex)
Azhar Mahmood
(Surrey)
D L Hemp
(Glamorgan)
D I Stevens
(Kent)
J N Batty
(Surrey)
C M Spearman
(Gloucestershire)
M P Bicknell
(Surrey)
K P Pietersen
(Hampshire)
P N Weekes
(Middlesex)
R S Clinton
(Surrey)
M H Yardy
(Sussex)
S K Warne
(Hampshire)
N V Knight
(Warwickshire)
A G R Loudon
(Warwickshire)
R Clarke
(Surrey)
D D Cherry
(Glamorgan)
A P R Gidman
(Gloucestershire)
M W Alleyne
(Gloucestershire)
M J Powell
(Warwickshire)
N Pothas
(Hampshire)
I J Westwood
(Warwickshire)
I J Ward
(Sussex)
A P Davies
(Glamorgan)
G P Thorpe
(Surrey)

 

[bharat]

How about:
S.R.Tendulkar (Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar)
S.C.Ganguly (Saurav Chandidas Ganguly?)
R.S.Dravid (Rahul Sharad Dravid)
S.M.Gavaskar (Sunil Manohar Gavaskar)

 

[squiz]

Basically everyone I know has a middle name

 

[Ashish_Nehra]

Pakistanis and most(not all) muslims have one first name

Shoiab Akhtar
Shoiab Malik
Shahid Afridi
Salman Butt
Yasir Hameed
Aseem Kamal
Danish Kaneria
Saqlain Mushtaq
Wasim Akram
Waqar Younis
Mohammad Sami
Yousuf Youhana
Kamran Akmal
Moin Khan
Yoounis Khan
Abdul Razzaq
Azhar Mehmood
Inzamam-Ul-Haq
Naveed-Ul-hasan(Ul-Haq and Ul-Hasan are surnames)
Ramiz Raza

......okay, the entire Pak team

from india

Mohammad Kaif
Zaheer Khan
Mohammad Azharuddin

sardars and singhs generally have one first name

Yuvraj Singh
Harbhajan Singh
Sarandeep Singh
Robin Singh

a newcomer
Suresh Raina

patels
Parthiv Patel
Munaf Patel
Neeraj Patel

srilanka have one first name player

Mutaih Muralitharan

Australia have

Brett Lee (THE SHORTEST INTL. CRICKET NAME I THINK)

England have freddie

don't know much about kiwis and proteas and windies(Chander,Srwan,anyway)

I think future players won't have more than one first name

 

[squiz]

I'm not sure how someone can have TWO FIRST names.

It's like saying I've played two debut test matches for Australia at the MCG

 

[andrew_nixon]

The vast majority of people of European origin have at least one middle name, sometimes more.

Actually most people of African and Caribean origin too.

It only seems to be most of Asia where middle names are less common.

 

[angryangy]

The middle name custom is usually the name of someone of importance, such as a parent, grandparent, statesman, hero or sometimes it is simply to differentiate father and son (many people are known by their second name).

 

[squiz]

eg. Brad Hogg, or should I say George Hogg

 

[Ashish_Nehra]

Vangipurraopu -- his native village
Venkata - his dad's name(not sure)
Sai - the god he worships
Laxman - his name

this makes V.V.S. Laxman

 

[indiancricketer]

M.S dhoni

 

[Ashish_Nehra]

Singh Dhoni -- should be considered as a surname

but even in hindi we write 2 words. Singh is not middle name.

even singh sodhi is a 2 word surname

WOW, 2 words surnames exist

 

[ZoraxDoom]

The vast majority of people of European origin have at least one middle name, sometimes more.

Actually most people of African and Caribean origin too.

It only seems to be most of Asia where middle names are less common.

I disagree.

SR Tendulkar:
First name-Sachin
Father's Name: Ramesh
Family Name(surname)-Tendulkar.

Same way for most Indians.

When ending with Singh(Sardar) it is:
First Name
Singh
Same with names enbding with Patel.

Now muslim names, those are confusing. My firend's name:
Mohammed
First Name
Dad's name
Dad's dad's name.
Or something like that.

Confusing.

I think it is so for, lets say, two cricketers with similar names(hypothetical):
D.Brown
D.Brown

The second letter seperates it(middle name).

Devon Smith and Dwayne Smith are a good example.

Some players have double names. None come to mind.

Now Sri Lankans-those are confusing. Something like village name- father name-first name-surname or something like that.

 

[andrew_nixon]

Good point. We can't forget Chaminda Vaas' full name:

Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Joseph Chaminda Vaas

 

[sohum]

I've always thought of the middle name as being the father's name. Oops. :S

 

[andrew_nixon]

Most of the people I talked with said it was very common in any walk of life and that the majority of people have two or more christian names

Actually, the majority of people in the world do not have two christian names. In fact the majority of people in the world have no christian names.