Quoting Martin Zuidervliet:

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The lack of respect for (other) cultural or religious reasons will be displayed by the results of this poll.

I have to disagree with you on this statement, Martin.  Perhaps that would be true if enough options were included in the poll, but unless people can truly represent how they feel, I don't think this particular poll will tell anything about respect - all opinions aren't represented.  There isn't even an "other" option.

Quoting Voltaire53:

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I believe you should use them for all names because someone should still be able to enter data without having to find out:

1) the country where the person was born
2) the country where they grew up
3) the nationalities of the parents
4) which of the above is appropraite to decide what their 'culture' is
and of course
5) which countries (supposedly) do and do not 'recognise' middle names... for example the UK on many official forms uses just "Surname" anf "Forenames" boxes implying it doesn't recognise names as 'middle' yet the culture fully accepts middle names even if the pen-puching form fillers don't!

You have a point there. But then, it seems to me that the same argument could be used the other way round: if you don't know all those things, why on earth should you consider it a Middle Name?
I can't help thinking that the answer to that question depends on the national background. If you ask an American or an English person, they will consider the "name in the middle" to generally be a "Middle Name", I guess. On the other hand, if you ask a French, German, Spanish, Italian or Chinese person, they will not, AFAIK. Some could even reply: what is a Middle Name? 

Mind you, I am not saying that calling it a "Middle Name" shows "lack of respect". I disagree with Martin on that.
I am only saying that entering a name as "Middle Name" is a cultural choice, not neutral at all, but it seems neutral to those who are used to it. Just like accents: everyone has got an accent, but you can hardly notice your own (it will sound as "neutral" to your ears), while you can easily spot an accent in the utterance of a bloke from a different British town or different borough, social class, and so on! 

Having said that, I would be cool with the proposed "Middle Name" rule if it worked. On the contrary, I fear it won't work, as many users will enter data differently than expected, according to national usage, not according to whatever rule we vote for here.

Just my 2 eurocents 

How about a simple universal rule like:
One single first name (or initial) in the First Name field,
Last name in the Last Name field,
Everything else in the Middle Name field... (initials, middle names, more 'first' names, aliases if we must).

.

Quoting hal9g:

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For countries that do not use "middle names", the field should never be used.  However, I suspect there is an exception even to this!

Yeah - the parent!

Quoting Martin Zuidervliet:

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The lack of respect for (other) cultural or religious reasons will be displayed by the results of this poll.

was the intent of the poll? cuz that's what it sounds like and i don't particularly like boobytraps.

Quoting Voltaire53:

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Quoting Staid S Barr:

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How about a simple universal rule like:
One single first name (or initial) in the First Name field,
Last name in the Last Name field,
Everything else in the Middle Name field... (initials, middle names, more 'first' names, aliases if we must).

I personally always preferred this, at least as the basic default... it means no need to ever have any additional knowledge or ability other than looking at the credits and being able to read.

It's what I do when I fill in forms, including Customs forms, also in the US, and I never had complaints. I have a Family Name obviously, and three Given Names, of which one would appear to be the "First". By default the rest are then Middle Name(s).

Quoting RHo:

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As long as the last name is put completely into the last name field no matter of how many words it is composed, I can support this.

That's better. But, how do you find out what part is the "last name"?