Middle Names of Presidents Trivia

1. What was the middle name of President James Polk?

From Quiz POTUS Middle Names

Answer: Knox

James Knox Polk, the 11th president, was in favor of expansionism, particularly the encompassing of the Oregon, California and Texas territories. His campaign slogan was '54-40 or fight' referring to the latitude and longitude of a contested border.

From Quiz Presidential Middle Names

Answer: John Fitzgerald Kennedy

The use of his full name certainly helped with name recognition during early local elections. John Fitzgerald lost a race for Congress against a Lodge whose own grandson would be Nixon's runningmate in 1960.

From Quiz Mr. President, What's Your Middle Name?

Answer: Herbert

President George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st president of the U.S., was named for his mother Dorothy's father, George Herbert Walker. Mr. Walker was a banker in St. Louis, Missouri, who helped organize the 1904 World's Fair there, and he went on to head the W.A. Harriman international investment firm. President Bush's son, George Walker Bush, eldest son of George H.W. and Barbara Bush, inherited a more manageable version of his father's name. He was elected in 2000 as the 43rd president, and has been nicknamed "Dubya" to distinguish his middle initial from his father's two middle initials.

From Quiz Presidential Nicknames

Answer: Zachary Taylor

President Taylor was one of six Presidents born in a log cabin. He was given the name "Old rough and Ready" by President Polk because of his informal leadership style as a General in the army.

From Quiz POTUS Middle Names

Answer: Birchard

Hayes, the 19th president, won election by a very close margin against Tilden, the final results being 185 to 184. This ultimate result was influenced by three southern states.

From Quiz Presidential Middle Names

Answer: Jefferson

Though not born a Clinton, Bill always had the Jefferson middle name.

From Quiz Mr. President, What's Your Middle Name?

Answer: Jefferson

President Bill Clinton, the 42nd U.S. president, was born William Jefferson Blythe III. His biological father, for whom he was named, was killed in an auto accident shortly before Bill Clinton was born. Clinton subsequently adopted the surname of his stepfather, while keeping his original first and middle names. Jefferson was a popular name through the 19th century in the states of the former Louisiana Purchase, as Thomas Jefferson was president when that large tract from the Mississippi to the Pacific became territory of the U.S.

From Quiz Presidential Nicknames

Answer: James Buchanan

Not only was President Buchanan the only President never to marry, he did nothing to calm down the southern states' anger about slavery thus not preventing them from starting the civil war.

From Quiz POTUS Middle Names

Answer: Woodrow

His full name was Thomas Woodrow Wilson and he was the 28th president. Wilson encouraged congress to enter WWI 'to make the world safe for democracy.' Wilson is also remembered for his 'Fourteen Points', his advocacy of state and individual rights, the Federal Reserve Act and the Federal Trade Act. Greenleaf was the poet Whittier's middle name.

From Quiz Presidential Middle Names

Answer: Thomas

Born in Virginia he would became the president of Princeton University and governor of New Jersey before being elected as President of the United States.

From Quiz Mr. President, What's Your Middle Name?

Answer: Wilson

While Ronald Wilson Reagan's middle name may show some prescience (Woodrow Wilson would be elected president two years after Ronald Reagan's birth), Reagan had the more typical middle namesake of his mother's maiden name, after Nelle Wilson Reagan. The incorrect answers are middle names of Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter, and not associated with prior presidents' first, last, or middle names.

From Quiz Presidential Nicknames

Answer: Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson never went to school. He taught himself to read after his friends taught him the letters of the alphabet. He was named "Sir Veto" because he tried to use the power of the veto to expand the power of the executive branch. He ultimately failed though, angering enough of congress with his vetos to cause his impeachment.

From Quiz POTUS Middle Names

Answer: Ulysses

His full name was Hiram Ulysses Grant and he was the 18th president. Known as a very competent military leader, he seemed overwhelmed by politics and ran the White House much like an army camp. It was said that he was a heavy drinker at times, and voluble in his criticism. Achilles and Hercules are both mythological heroes, and Samson is a Biblical one.

From Quiz Presidential Middle Names

Answer: Earl

Former naval officer and governor Jimmy Carter would spend only four years in the White House before losing to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

From Quiz Mr. President, What's Your Middle Name?

Answer: John Fitzgerald and Robert Francis

It's all in the family with the Kennedys. Grandfathers Patrick Joseph Kennedy and John Francis Fitzgerald were well represented with their names sprinkled through the Kennedy progeny. Boston Mayor John Francis "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, father of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, was particularly well represented in the names of the second and third boys of Rose's large Kennedy clan: President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Senator/Attorney General Robert Francis Kennedy.

From Quiz POTUS Middle Names

Answer: Grover

His full name was Stephen Grover Cleveland and he was the 22nd and 24th president. He was the first president to enter the presidency as a bachelor but was later married in the White House. His blunt, unhelpful attitude toward farmers, railroad workers and others in need made him quite unpopular. The three wrong answers are cities or towns in Ohio.

From Quiz Presidential Middle Names

Answer: George Herbert Walker Bush

Ann Richards turned George Herbert Walker Bush into a chant during the Democratic Convention in 1988. It was some of her comments that led his son George W. Bush to go for the governor's mansion a few years later.

From Quiz Mr. President, What's Your Middle Name?

Answer: Dwight

As a boy, Eisenhower opted to use his original middle name as a first name. President Eisenhower was born David Dwight Eisenhower in 1890 to David Eisenhower and Ida Stover Eisenhower. He was David Dwight in the family Bible and in the Abilene High School Yearbook of 1909 (check out a photocopy in the Eisenhower Presidential Library on-line archives), but was called Dwight in the family to distinguish him from his father's name. The nickname "Ike," however, was used by all six of the Eisenhower boys, causing much confusion. By the time he graduated West Point in 1915, he was known as Dwight David Eisenhower. President Eisenhower's bride was Mamie Doud, and they had a son who died young named Doud Dwight Eisenhower, and a second son, John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower.

From Quiz Presidential Nicknames

Answer: Martin Van Buren

President Van Buren was the first president born an American citizen. His predecessors all were born before the Declaration of Independence and were born as British subjects. He earned the name "Red Fox of Kinderhook" simply because he had red hair.

From Quiz POTUS Middle Names

Answer: S

As he had no middle name, Truman adopted the middle initial S. because he was told it indicated a more proper presidential name, but apparently it did not stand for anything. The 33rd president, Truman empowered the social security act; he also encouraged Congress to allow the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima after Japan refused an urgent plea for surrender. He is also fondly remembered for the plaque in his office that stated, "The buck stops here!" Henry is a nickname for Harry. Both Q and M are characters in the James Bond novels.

From Quiz Presidential Middle Names

Answer: Harry S. Truman

Truman was also the last president in the 20th Century to not have a college degree. He felt insecure and used the false middle initial because he felt it made his name seem more important.

From Quiz Mr. President, What's Your Middle Name?

Answer: Nothing but S

Harry Truman's middle initial was given him at birth in 1884 by his parents. Harry's two grandfathers were named Anderson Shipp[e] Truman and Solomon Young, and his maternal uncle was Harrison Young. The boy was named Harry for his Uncle Harrison, and "S" to cover both grandfathers.

From Quiz Presidential Nicknames

Answer: James A. Garfield

President Garfield grew up working the canals in Ohio. He was also the last president born in a log cabin and the first left-handed president.

From Quiz POTUS Middle Names

Answer: Rudolph

Gerald Rudolph Ford was the 38th president. Ford described himself as, "a moderate in domestic affairs, a conservative in fiscal affairs, and a dyed-in-the-wool internationalist in foreign affairs."

From Quiz Presidential Middle Names

Answer: Ronald Wilson Reagan

Reagan was the first divorced man to hold the office of President. A graduate of Eureka College, he was once the president of a labor union (screen actors).

From Quiz Mr. President, What's Your Middle Name?

Answer: Delano

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president, was of the Hyde Park, New York, branch of the Roosevelt family. Delano was his mother's maiden name. Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president, was from the Oyster Bay, New York, branch of the family, and a fifth cousin of FDR. Theodore's brother Elliott had a daughter named Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (she went by her middle name). Both Eleanor's parents died by her 10th year. When she married, her uncle Theodore, then President Roosevelt, gave the bride away. Eleanor's new husband, of course, was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and would become President Roosevelt in his own right 28 years later.

From Quiz Presidential Nicknames

Answer: Woodrow Wilson

President Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his involvement in ending WWI, he was also president of a university (Princeton) thus earning him his nickname.

From Quiz POTUS Middle Names

Answer: Gamaliel

His full name was Warren Gamaliel Harding and he was the 29th president. Harding seemed a bit full of himself and his speeches were characterized by a political opponent, McAdoo, as "...an army of pompous phrases...in search of an idea."

From Quiz Presidential Middle Names

Answer: Baines

His wife, Lady Bird Johnson, tried to beautify America's highways. His daughter would be married to a senator from Virginia.

From Quiz Mr. President, What's Your Middle Name?

Answer: Grover

President Cleveland was christened Stephen Grover Cleveland, but did not generally use his first name as an adult. Numerous U.S. presidents went by their middle names including Calvin Coolidge, Woodrow Wilson, and others mentioned in this quiz. The Rev. Richard Cleveland, President Cleveland's father, was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Caldwell, New Jersey, when his fifth child was born in 1837. He named the boy in honor of the first pastor of that church back in the 1790s, the Rev. Stephen Grover.

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