Microsoft Rewards?

"Wolf K" wrote in message
...
donors, who like to see their names on buildings and letterheads.

That reminds me of something I noticed when I was over in the USA (Boston
area, visiting my sister and her family who were living there at the time).
On buildings which are named after benefactors, and on people's name badges
on their office doors and on letterheads etc) there's much more use of
people's middle initials than in the UK. Here, a middle name is something
that is rarely used apart from official forms which require all your names.
But in the USA, it almost seems like a badge of honour to flaunt your middle
initial: no-one is just "John Smith" or "Dave Jones" - they are all "John H
Smith" or "Dave A Jones" - even for uncommon names where the middle name
isn't need to avoid ambiguity. And there's this habit, which the UK
perceives as being very American, of a father, son and grandson all having
the same first name and having to be distinguished by suffixes "John Smith
II", "John Smith III" etc.

Could be worse, though: in some European countries (France, Spain), you get
men whose middle name is a woman's (possibly their mother's or
grandmother's). José MarÃ*a Olazábal, Jean-Marie le Pen etc. That's a bit too
close to "A Boy Named Sue" for British tastes :-)

We all have our national peculiarities. I'm sure we Brits do.