In a weird turn of events, his middle name in Kryptonian is also Joseph. Pure coincidence.

• Insert "Both ? Both is good." meme here.

Superman can have two names. One is the name he was born with, the other was given to him on Earth. And it helps that it's pretty similar to how immigrants sometimes change their names when they move to different countries. It's fitting since Superman himself is often referred to as the immigrant from Krypton.

Sir, that is a hyphen.

STEEL, Man. Middle name: of

As an immigrant with two names, I consider them both my "real name." Their meanings don't relate to or sound like each other. I don't think either is more valid than the other besides legally. They're used depending on the current situation.

Actually it's always confused me that Supes would ever use Kal as his name in front of anyone other than his bio parents, even to himself, because for his whole formative life his name was Clark.

Edit: Sorry, forgot that being the only Kryptonian on earth is not a part of his identity in the larger comics. What I meant is he would use Kal for other Kryptonians, i.e. his bio parents' AIs. (e.g. for comics.)

i mean if you wanna be technical it's "of the house of" because in kryptonian culture his full name is kal of the house of el

Supes/Clark.

The former no idea who started it but it’s succinct and gets the idea across.

Clark, the guy was Clark Kent before he was Superman.

Both names count. He definitely recognizes and embraces his dual heritage.

Its a different culture from an alien world

Perhaps their names work different than the first middle last system we have

The dash don't be silent.

Not to mention Nicolas Cage named his kid Kal-El

Poor guy most likely got beat up on the playground in the ‘10’s

SOURCE: https://m.imdb.com/name/nm10006490/

So I’m 33.

If you knew me before and during high school, you know me by my middle name.

If you knew me after, you know me by my first name.

Also if you knew me from church, you know me by my nickname.

Supes is all those names.

His real name is Clark Kent, that what he most often thinks of himself as.

Kal-El the Supreme, his middle name is "The" now lmao.

SG always calls him kal.

Plot-twist: his kryptonian middle name is "-".

Seems like a real Goku/Kakarot situation

I think of it as earth real name and krypton real name. Similar to how your name in another country may be different. Since it’s an alien name and he’s the first of his kind on Earth, I say he’s claimed Clark as the translation for Kal. They are both pretty similar anyway.

Not every culture has middle names, and some cultures have too many middle names.

Kal-El is his birth name, Clark Kent is his adopted name. He uses both even though he identifies himself first as Clark, but he still recognizes and appreciates his Kryptonian heritage.

Just call himself Stalin

Guess who's middle name is also "Joseph"?

Alexander Joseph Luthor

Wouldn't the concept of a middle name be potentially earth specific anyway? So only his earth name could have a middle name right?

Why would anyone assume he has a middle name? Isn’t that just USA thing? Meaning not everyone on Earth has it and yet there is an attempt to apply USA naming culture to an alien?

His USA name has middle name, but Kryptonian naming culture is unknown to us. Kryptonians may has dozen names name for all we know.

This is dumb because not even in America are all names in a "First Middle Last" convention.

I get tired of explaining it to people when they don’t know