What was Rosalind Franklin's middle name?

Rosalind Franklin’s middle name was Elsie. Her full birth name was Rosalind Elsie Franklin, and she was born in London on 25 July 1920.

Franklin became one of the twentieth century’s leading X-ray crystallographers. She used diffraction methods to investigate the structures of coal, graphite, DNA, and viruses. Her DNA photographs, particularly Photo 51, provided crucial evidence for the molecule’s helical form.

Elsie is sometimes omitted because Franklin is almost always referred to simply by her first and last names. The name also appears in biographies and institutional records as part of “Rosalind Elsie Franklin.” She should not be confused with Rosalind Franklin’s close scientific collaborators, such as Maurice Wilkins, Raymond Gosling, or Aaron Klug.