An Observed Phenomenon

Previous screeds of my past blog aside, I do have a number of current and former sorority women as friends on Facebook, and this only increased as I began my current program of study. Over the past few months I have noticed something: a disturbing (and annoying) percentage of them have their presumed middle names listed instead of their last names. Admittedly, this does not affect the sorting algorithm for Facebook, as the site alphabetizes by first name, but for the first month or so that this was going on it was somewhat confusing when, instead of seeing stuff about Jane Doe on my news feed, I get stories about a Jane Sue when I am certain I have never friended anyone with a last name of Sue.

No one has told my why this is going on, as I try to stay on the periphery of such social groups and have not asked directly. However, my best guess is that it's some cutesy attempt to keep people, like job recruiters or admissions officers, from finding their profiles and seeing everything that can be seen there. Using the friend list and other privacy features, not to mention de-tagging all those underage drinking photos, would be a better means of doing this, though, so I am not sure my guess is correct. Anyone know what's really going on?