There have been holy wars over the years on whether the 33rd President of the United States was called Harry S. Truman or Harry S Truman. Those taking sides on this have used these claims:
- he signed himself "Harry S. Truman"
- institutions named "Harry S. Truman Library", etc.
- his middle name was just "S"
- he had only a middle initial, no middle name
These arguments are largely based on an unfounded assumption: that there's no way the forms "Harry S. Truman" and "Harry S Truman" can both be correct.
As it happens, it's come out in discussions that Truman had no birth certificate as the law of his state didn't require them at the time, so we don't have that to go by. But we don't seem to have any definitive evidence of what his legal full name was or how he filled in the "First names" box on forms.
As such, I have written this piece not to take any side on the matter, but to help people to think straight.
Supposing his middle name was S
editThen both "Harry S. Truman" and "Harry S Truman" are correct. By writing "Harry S. Truman", you are not stating what his middle name is, merely that its first letter is S, just like you are doing by writing anybody's name in this form. It may seem silly to call the only letter of a name the first letter, but technically it is.
And institutions named in his honour are equally within their rights to be "Harry S. Truman X" or "Harry S Truman X", among other forms. Indeed, the official names of different institutions use different forms, such as Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum and Harry S Truman College.
Moreover, consistency is good style. In a list of names, either list everyone's middle initial, list everyone's middle name (except people with no middle names), or don't list them at all. Here is a partial list of them according to each possible convention:
| First name and surname | First name, middle initial and surname | First name, middle name and surname |
|---|---|---|
| Herbert Hoover | Herbert C. Hoover | Herbert Clark Hoover |
| Franklin Roosevelt | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
| Harry Truman | Harry S. Truman | Harry S Truman |
| Dwight Eisenhower | Dwight D. Eisenhower | Dwight David Eisenhower |
| John Kennedy | John F. Kennedy | John Fitzgerald Kennedy |
In each context where we give people's names, we should consistently follow the convention of one of these columns. So if it turns out that his middle name is indeed S, then the article lead should say "Harry S Truman" for consistency with articles on other US presidents (and indeed, most biographical articles on Wikipedia generally), which give middle names in full rather than as initials.
Supposing his middle name was S.
editThen only "Harry S. Truman" is correct, and it serves as both the "first name, middle initial, surname" and "first name, middle name, surname" forms. Then the above table becomes:
| First name and surname | First name, middle initial and surname | First name, middle name and surname |
|---|---|---|
| Herbert Hoover | Herbert C. Hoover | Herbert Clark Hoover |
| Franklin Roosevelt | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
| Harry Truman | Harry S. Truman | Harry S. Truman |
| Dwight Eisenhower | Dwight D. Eisenhower | Dwight David Eisenhower |
| John Kennedy | John F. Kennedy | John Fitzgerald Kennedy |
Supposing he had no middle name
editI.e. his parents gave him the middle initial S but no name for which it stands, not even S or S. itself. Then it's more tricky. But I suppose his name would be written in the same ways as for S. being his middle name – it shows that he at least had the middle initial and hence that his initials are HST rather than just HT.
Another statement I have seen is that, since the S didn't stand for anything, the "." is not required. This seems wrong: the standard English way to write an initial as part of a person's name is with the ".". "Harry S Truman" is not correct English unless his middle name really is "S".
Another case in point: J. K. Rowling has no middle name, but you wouldn't see the name written "J. K Rowling". There's a difference there in that the "K." is part of her pen name, not her real name, but I'm not sure that makes a difference.
If you want to be pedantic, you could claim that because the S doesn't stand for anything it isn't an initial – in other words, it's just a "middle letter" not a "middle initial". It would appear that the rules of standard English don't cover this scenario, otherwise there wouldn't be as much dispute about it. But still, my inclination is that we should be consistent with how we write "J. K. Rowling".