I found this very interesting ,especially the part about NATIONAL EVENTS OR PERSONALITIES.DavidWW wrote:Middle names most probably relate to the maiden name of the mother, or those of the grandmothers or even ggrandmothers, but can, occasionally, relate to the doctor or the midwife involved in a difficult birth, the minister if it was his first baptism, or even national events or personalities, but most often in the latter case fairly obvious, e.g. Victoria in the years of her Silver of Golden Jubilees, or Mafeking in the year of the relief thereof, or Gordon in the context of the Sudan, etc., etc.
Here's what I have and I would appreciate anyone's comments on the subject.
A big part of my family are the Dunsmuir's,Dunsmor's and Dinsmoor's 750 and counting. 1650---To the present 2006
A lot of the work was done on paper by two of my cousins Robina and Gordon lasting over some 20years,I came along and put all of their and my findings in to a family tree on computer,in doing so I think that I found a remarkable event in the family history.
At the end of the year 1776 nine families of record with the name of Dunsmuir somehow all got together and decided that any children born into the families would be now called Dunsmore.Those already with the name of Dunsmuir and their offspring would still retain their Dunsmuir name and past it on to their offspring. This I was able to prove by the dates of births which showed up on my birth index on my computer, I believe only having entered all of the families names on the computer and instead of shuffling through reams and sheets of data did the picture of the this particular situation show up.. It also helped to clear up some of the confusion it created in the various files and listings submitted by L.D.S. members.
Some names in a particular family shown on L.D.S.entries show up as Dunsmuir before 1776 and some show up as Dunsmores born on or after 1776..
(as I write this I wonder if L.D.S.ever noticed this)all of these show on the same page or entry.There are a few other Dunsmores,Dinsmoors, Dunsmure,,but none of these are of our family. (name wise)
So now that I have this info I have to ask myself why? Why would some person or persons in a family decide to change the names of future generations.Their reasoning or cause has to be very significant.
The Dunsmuirs history I will not go into, suffice to say that the were like most families at this time involved as weavers and soon to be come coal miners.They all lived in or close to Barony,as per their census, birth and marriage certificates show.
Was it that, maybe some of the family had a bit of a fight or complete dislike for an other part of the family and it was at the time though drastic their way of retaliation, remembering that in this period of history 1776,, education, hence realization was a bit short on families of weavers.To carry this on further we have never been able to tie the Ayrshire Dunsmuirs and Lanarkshire Dunsmuirs together.could there have been a split and these two families went their separate ways The name Dunsmuir in any records that I have did not appear before 1680,s in Ayrshire There were various Dunsmoors, Dinsmoores Dunesmure,etc but none of these carried the old Scottish way of passing down the family names which was prevalent with the Dunsmuirs way of names and naming,so I had to rule them out (at this time)
It took me about a year before I had what I call my Magical Senior Moment,this happened one night lying in bed, like we all do going over what we have discovered that day and hope to discover maybe in the next
The most significant thing that I could find what had happened in 1776 was the American declaration of Independence,could the Dunsmuirs have any
connection to this, I doubted that,but then my little bit of education and realization kicked in. Was not the last British Governor of Virginia and the U.S.A. One Lord Dunsmore(Dunmore).What could he have to do with my Dunsmuirs and their name change.???
Absolutely nothing!! I have discovered so far, BUT!! BUT!! it's all that I have been able to come up with so maybe he did have a connection or maybe my Dunsmuirs liked the guy's way of handling the situation and at a party New Years Eve 1776 after having a good few drinks decided on a name change, to show their support of the Governor. SPECULATION.
One more confusing factor about Governor Dunsmore(Dunmore) who came from Dunmore Stirling area,The Murray clan controlled this area and Governor Dunsmore(Dunmore)Who was a Murray by name inherited the title of Lord Dunmore(Dunsmore)from his father. The Murray clan claim the Dunsmuir,Dunsmores as a sept of their clan..Why we do not know and it seems neither do they.I think it was written by one of those heredity people trying to make a buck.
NATIONAL EVENTS AND PERSONALITIES Kicked in.........So what do you think? am I on to something here or just blowing that old smoke up the chimney.A lot of speculation invited.
Again thank you Jack for showing me your cut and paste for this long rendition.
TDH
Any reasonable explanation needs to hold water and so far your seems quite worthy of the task 
I'm not sure your theory can ever be proved...but then can it be