That’s probably true* but an even bigger factor was that until recently, women were basically chattel. Nobody cared about keeping their lineage straight.
I knew one fellow whose name was Alfred, and that was the name he used banking. His father was Fred. In those days, bank records were kept on file cards and it was a small town, but even so they would frequently confuse the two - lazy bank employees would grab the first person with that last name that sort of matched.
Yeah, a friend of mine was like that - “Big John” and “Little John”. One day when “Little John” was 18 and about 6 inches taller than “Big John” I suggested it was time to change the nicknames to “John” and “Old John”…
(Funny, I don’t think they ever referred to the son as “John Junior” in any formal settings.)
The elder Torqueling is named after her great-grandfather and grandfather. “Aubrey” used to be more of a boys’ name, but lately girls have taken it over. Great-granddad was “Aubrey Daniel”, grandfather was “Daniel Aubrey”, the Torqueling is “Aubrey Danielle”.
Can I start calling her “Aubrey the Third”? Or maybe just “Trey”?
Male same-name lineages often stretch over long distances (I’m Septimus the Seventh) but female name iterations are less visible. After all, maiden names are often forgotten after a few generations — most cultures are patrilocal. Yet there are some instances of long stretches. For example:
Barbara Gough was the daughter of Barbara Calthorpe (wife of a Baronet) who was the daughter of Barbara Yelverton who was the daughter of Barbara Talbot (wife of Viscount). Barbara Talbot in turn was the daughter of Barbara Slingsby who was the daughter of Barbara Belasyse. Barbara Belasyse married Henry Slingsby, a Colonel in the Army of King Charles I. For his loyalty to the unheaded King, Sir Henry was himself beheaded on Tower Hill 8 June 1658. (Oliver Cromwell showed leniency — the original sentence called for Sir Henry to be hanged, drawn and quartered).
Who was Barbara Belasyse’s mother? You guessed it — Barbara Cholmeley (wife of another viscount). Barbara was the daughter of a Margaret, but that Margaret’s mother was Barbara Constable.
Barbara Constable was uterine great grand-daughter of Cis Neville (mother of two English Kings) while Barbara Gough was the uterine gt-gt-gt-gt- grandmother of the very Michael Ibsen whose mt-DNA haplogroup was published 2 or 3 years ago. That’s how this sequence of Barbaras came into prominence: it’s the very uterine line used to confirm that the corpse believed to be King Richard III’s was indeed the child of Lady Cecily of Neville, Sweet Rose of Raby, Duchess of York.
Can anyone best this sequence of 7 Barbaras? (8 if you include Margaret’s mother.)
My extended family does have some matching names (though no Juniors), both by coincidence and from people being named after other people, but we never use numbers to distinguish them. Most often, if we need to disambiguate, then we do it by giving the name of the person through whom they’re connected to the family (invented example: “Peggy’s Earl” might be the Earl who’s married to Peggy, while “Carol’s Earl” is Carol’s son). My grandparents, the patriarch and matriarch of the extended family (both of whom have descendants named after them) are just “Pappy” or “Grandpap” and “Mazzie”.
Apparently, the family that produced the poet Emily Dickinson had a habit of naming a daughter Emily in every generation, so there are a lot of Emily Dickinsons out there who are all cousins, second cousins, aunts, or other such relations of the poet. I had a good friend whose great-great-grandmother was one of the cousins. She had a totally different life, though. She left New England to be a homesteader, and gave birth to something like 11 children, 10 of whom lived to adulthood. She and her husband, in spite of their genteel and somewhat sheltered upbringing, turned out to be very successful farmers. I met my friend’s grandmother once when she was doing the research, and she was full of all sorts of interesting stories.
This is a variation on the theme: I grew up in Sugercreek Township, Wayne Co. Oh. For what ever reason in the 1830’s - 1840’s a fairly large number of Swiss Mennonites settled in the vicinity. It is no exaggeration to say these folks were extremely intermarried. They also used a very small pool of names for women, almost exclusively from the Bible. So there would be any number of women with the same first name. The local conventions was to identify the wife by their husbands first name, so my father’s mother was known as Menno’s Anna. All very patriarchal. I’m not aware of a case where there were couples that shared both the husband’s and wife’s name. But I suppose that could have happened.
Zuer-coli
One of the reasons for the long formal names of the late Roman aristocracy was the desire to include both the Mothers name and the Fathers name in the childs name – like hyphenated surnames now. Of course, Roman women didnt need to take jr/snr to differentiate themselves from their parent/child, because they didn’t take any of their husbands name on mariage.
I was reading about the owners of the C.F. Martin Company. It was founded by Christian Friedrich Martin in 1833. The current owner is Chris Martin IV. The ages didn’t seem right I finally dug up C.F. Senior’s that sons weren’t Juniors, but his grandson was C.F. II.
Back in the day, loooong before the advent of magnetic numbers on a check, I had my bank account with a rather small local bank. My father and my uncle also had an account in that same bank. What was interesting was that my name and my father’s name were identical (no Junior of any other identifying suffix on my name). Also my uncle’s name was the same as my father’s, except for a minor spelling of the first name (all three name’s had the same initials).
Now, in those far away times, the balance in my account was usually small (tiny, actually). One payday I took my paycheck into the bank, deposited it into my account, and then wrote a check to a store where I had a bill. Well, the bank took my paycheck, deposited it into my father’s account, and then when my check subsequently bounced, notified my uncle of the insufficient funds.
After this was all straightened out, the bank manager stated ruefully that this sort of name similarity gave them a lot of problems.
I’m still boggled that a gas station went through the time and trouble to chase someone for 2¢.
That occurs even with similar names.
My Father had a different middle name, a different SSN and birthdate (obviously) and was even deceased- but that didnt stop TransUnion or Experian from mixing us up.
I think Junior is mostly an American thing. I’m the fourth Bookkeeper in my immediate line (although my given names are very common in our family history), and my great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and I were Bookkeeper, Bookkeeper II, Bookkeeper III, and Bookkeeper IV, respectively - no Juniors. All in the best British/Canadian tradition.
Technically, I suppose, I’m not really an IV, as I wasn’t named after my father. He was going to be out of town when I was due, so told my mother “for God’s sake don’t name him after me! Three in a row is enough!” So she named me after my two grandfathers, and it was pure coincidence that this resulted in given names that matched his! 
My father always went by his middle name, and Grandad and I had different nickname variations of our first names, so no confusion between the generations.
Aubrey for a girl is right up there with the Mac_ names (Mackensie et al.). Aubrey means “Golden King” and Mac prefix is "Son of …) :dubious:
Somewhat off the original topic, but in line with the subsequent discussion, my wife comes from the Acadian French stock that settled in Eastern Canada and Maine (and stayed when a bunch left and ended up in Louisiana where “Acadian” eroded to “Cajun”. There’s a town there named after, and presumably founded by, her relatives).
When we were looking at her genealogy, we noted that families would “recycle” names. Not only would a son get named after a relative, but if he died as an infant or child the name would be used again for a later son. This could get confusing, if you’ll pardon the understatement. :rolleyes:
I was just now looking at the IMDB entry for Stan Against Evil and noticed a “junior” actress–Deborah Baker Jr.
History is littered with exceptions to the “traditional and customary” rules. Some folks claim a Jr. when they aren’t related to the Sr. . One or two blues musicians have been Robert Johnson, Jr, though the famous one never had children. Boxer George Foreman named all his kids George Foreman, Jr, partly to spite an advice columnist who said there can be only one Jr. per Sr. Usually, “the second” is not a son, but not always.
A corollary to the custom says a Jr. may (should?) drop the Jr. when his dad dies. I could go on, but I’ve bored you already.
There’s a character in the Doonesbury comic strip named Joan, Junior. She goes by “JJ”, and is Mike Doonesbury’s first spouse and mother of his daughter. Her own mother is Joanie Caucus.
Yes, and when she’s first introduced, I remember that a male character (Mike or Mark) thinks, “Joan, Junior?” in the fourth panel, as if it’s a joke.
