I have seen several suggestions on ways to indicate a person's middle name was preferred over their first name:
Is there any consensus on the best approach in an obituary?
You would write "Ebenezer John Doe, known as John,...".
'Ebenezer "John" Doe' would indicate that "John" was not his actual name (middle or otherwise) but one given to him instead, i.e. a nickname.
"aka" would indicate an alias or alternative name, not necessarily a preferred one.
As a person who uses his middle name, I would prefer "Middlename Lastname" in the beginning and then later in the biography give the full birthname.
This is simple. Nobody (except the government) uses my Firstname, and using it at the beginning of the obituary would be confusing. Some people would wonder if this is the person they knew.
Submit the obituary under the name Middlename Surname so that the headline will show up in the publication or on the website as one of the following, depending on the style of the publisher:
Then, in the body of the obituary, write something like this:
Firstname Middlename Surname was born in Someplace, Biggerplace, on Month DD, YYYY, to Father and Mother Surname. Middlename grew up in Otherplace and studied Subject at University of Wherever, where he met the love of his life...
The reason for including Firstname at all is genealogical. Decades in the future, descendants and other researchers may find official documents under the name "Firstname Surname" or "Firstname M. Surname" and wonder who that is and whether that's the same person. The obituary is your chance to leave breadcrumbs for the future.
This might be a bit less formal than you're looking for, but I think that this format would work for most people; it's a slight modification of DJClayworth's answer:
Since no-one else seems to have said it, I would suggest Firstname Middlename Surname in the first sentence but then Middlename in subsequent references. As long as your obituary is long enough to contain subsequent mentions, and isn't so formal that only the surname is used later on, this makes things clear in a respectful way without dwelling on the point unnecessarily (which I think a 'known as X to his friends' does).
Charles Michael Jones died last week aged 82 after a short illness. Born in 1941, he grew up in Amsterdam but moved with his family to Chicago aged 11. … Michael was universally loved for his sense of humour and dedication to his friends.
I would opt for Firstname Middlename "Middlename" Surname from your list of choices.
Finding a random obituary in my area reveals:
Charles "Chuck" H. Lake, Jr.
Which is reinforced throughout the obituary later via:
Chuck proudly served his country in the US Air Force...
Chuck was also involved in his church choir...
I would say that consistent reinforcement throughout the obituary helps to disambiguate whatever punctuation you wish to use in the initial nomenclature.
Source: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/syracuse/name/charles-lake-obituary?id=53339491
My father's name was Edward Norman Flydog (well, with different family name). In both his and my mother's obituaries (in 1990 and 2023, respectively), he's referred to as "Edward Norman Flydog", but in the next sentence, he's referred to as "Norm".
What about Firstname Middlename Lastname ("Middlename")
John Howard Doe ("Howard")
It looks a bit more graceful than having the Middlename twice in a row.
One way to do this would be to write "Marcus Anthony (Anthony) Roman". In my experience the name in brackets is understood to be the person's unofficial, but commonly used name.
