Not frightening, per se, but an interesting coincidence.
My father’s first and middle names are Russell and James.
One of my best friends is named Russell. He has a twin brother named James.
So, if Columba had kids, her sister would be Aunt Jemima? Oh, my.
Actually, I don’t find the names in the OP all that bad, really. They’re just very old-fashioned, and you kind of have to expect old-fashioned when you’re dealing with people in their seventies. They were both relatively common names in the early part of the century. My mother’s stillborn little sister was named Verna, and that was in the late fifties.
(Of course, my grandmother’s name is Melba Jean, and on the other side of the family I have a grandmother named Famie, a great-aunt named Verble, another great-aunt named Omie, and a cousin named Gradaphene (grade-uh-feen) Irene (she’s named after her grandmothers). So maybe Verna and Viola only sounds decent by comparison.)
Just looking through the family tree book -
we have :
May and Mac
Francis and Gertrude
Albert and Jimmy
Ola and Lola
Billie and Jackie
Jerry and Terry
Loretta and Linda
Wayne and Wanda
Brooke and Becca
Nathaniel and Natalie
Ashley and Amber
I used to live across the stree from identical triplets:
Mindy, Misty and Mandy
they had a younger sister named Brandy.
They were not the nicest family on the block.
Mary Margaret and Margaret Mary
Although we’re not twins, my sister and I qualify for the “What were their parents thinking”, catagory. I’m Paul and she’s Paula. The two younger were spared sharing our fate. The original plan was to name them Paulette and Pauline, but, evidently, one of my parents came to their senses before it was too late.
When I was in jr. high school there was a coffee shop near my neighborhood. It was called the Char-Mar Steak House, named after the twins, Charleen and Marleen. They were in their mid twenties and I spent a lot of my hard earned paper route money drinking cokes at the counter watching them work because they were two of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.