Well we have a female line tradition where Mary is the middle name. To my knowledge it goes back at least five generations, my mother, and her mother, and her mother and so on...

....BUT in every single one of those generations, the mothers and daughters have had a falling out and gone to live with the grandmother...often the mother-daughter relationship was damaged for life.

So I decided that is one tradition I'm just not going to pass on. It stops right here with me. I will fight tooth and nail to keep the relationship with my DDs strong and loving. So I've given both my DD's different middle names, consciously.