And that’s only accidental problems. To say nothing about intentional ones.
The USA Republican party has a project for ‘voter security’ where they have identified millions of people who they claim are questionable double voters: anyone who has the same first name and last name as another voter in any of the 50 states they claim as ‘questionable’. ignoring middle names, ignoring suffixes (Jr., II, etc.), ignoring birthdate, etc. And they want to investigate aa those people, and make them produce various documents and jump thru hoops to prove their right to vote.
That’s quite interesting. Can he go further, and, say, start calling himself “Abu Ahmed Abu Muhammad Abu Miriam”, signaling that he intends to have two sons named Ahmed and Muhammad and one daughter named Miriam, Allah willing?
Not quite. No living male has the suffix of Sr. That designation goes to his widow, Mrs. Joe Rae Bill Bob Armadillo-Thwack, Sr. Her son becomes just plain Joe Rae Bill Bob Armadillo-Thwack, her grandson is Mrs. Joe Rae Bill Bob Armadillo-Thwack, Jr.
As noted, the shuffling of suffixes is more trouble than it is worth. Let the post-nominal numbers roll up!
(My second cousin’s son – my second cousin once removed – is a V. He has my great grandfather’s name, as did his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.)
*Robert E. Lee V is athletic director and football coach at Potomac School outside Washington. His father, Robert E. Lee IV, is a retired distillery executive whose accent hints at the city where he was raised —New York.
J.E.B. Stuart IV, a retired Army colonel and great-great-grandson of Lee’s cavalry general, lives in Richmond, Va., where his son J.E.B. V is an orthopedic surgeon.
Ulysses S. Grant V, the general’s last surviving great-grandson, died in March at age 90. He is survived by his son, Ulysses S. Grant VI. VII has yet to appear, but J.E.B. Stuart VI is a sophomore in college, and Robert E. Lee VI is in grade school.*
Supposedly the studio dropped the ordinal at the end of the title of the British historical drama The Madness of King George III when it was released in the U.S., because they were worried dumb Yanks wouldn’t go see it, having missed the first two movies in the series.
The first-born son has a disproportionate amount of power in the family, autocratic over all daughters and younger sons. Only the first born son is the natural heir to the patriarchy, and assumes paternal power in case of his father’s death. All siblings that follow are subservient to him.
One of the interesting things about the original Ulysses S. Grant was that he was born as Hiram Ulysses Grant and was renamed as a result of a paperwork mishap. He was mistakenly registered at West Point Military Academy under his middle name and a stray middle initial S, and he decided not to fight it. Of course, in those days, that was pretty easy to do practically, especially when your government ID paperwork already has the name you are changing to!
One question this does raise, is what happens to the ordinal suffix if there is a name change somewhere down the line. One can come up with all sorts of weird hypotheticals. For example,
Say John Brian Robinson, III decides he hates his father’s guts and changes his name to George Frank Smith. He marries and has a son that he names George Frank Smith, Jr. The son grows up and decides that grandpa was really a good guy after all and wants to be named John Brian Robinson. Would he:
Become John Brian Robinson IV, as he would have been if the name shenanigans hadn’t happened.
Become John Brian Robinson III, because the old III ceased to exist and the title is now open.
Just become John Brian Robinson with no ordinal, because the chain has been “broken”.
Then later, George Frank Smith, Sr. decides that he was wrong to change his name and wants to go back. Can he reclaim the III or would he be “reordered”, possibly ending up with a later number than his son?
Obviously, the legal answer would be that they pretty much get to decide for themselves what they want to be. But would there have been, or is there, a “Miss Manners” way to handle this?
The stage play by Alan Bennett was The Madness of George III. The film version was The Madness of King George. The official reason given for the title change was that George III is most commonly called “George III” in the UK, but “King George” in the US, and the producers wanted to ensure that the audience understood that this would be a film about a king.
No, but the list seems complete for the 18th century. All numbers from 67 through 75 had been assigned, and nothing higher.
In the late 19th century, many estranged relatives abandoned the system, and I don’t think communication before the 1700s was good enough to keep the numbers straight.
So the Reuss line seems to top out at LXXV. English wiki mentions the record here.
I have a very good friend with a III - him and his father were joking they both get to move up a notch now that his grandfather has died. My friend had no idea that this is actually what some people claim to do. To me (and I believe both of them) it seems ridiculous - you don’t change your name cause someone died.
I don’t care what Miss Manners says. Let her deal with having two people in a database with the same name. Now try telling them “oh I used to be III, but then grandad died so now I’m a II”. Yes in theory you should have an account number or something else to go by, but this doesn’t always happen.
I believe the idea behind manners - as I think Peter (I think) Post (the son of Emily post) said is to make life easier/more comfortable on people - not to have arbitrary rules. I fail to see how changing things makes things easier on ANYONE - except someone who wants to know how far back your male paternal line is still living.
As far as the three options you mention - I think you could argue Miss Manners might say - if your dad wanted you to have that name - he would have given it to you. By taking that name - you are basically pretending your dad liked the name enough to bestow it on you.
Therefore it doesn’t matter what you do. She’d probably tell you to go without the ordinal, but I’m gonna say go with the IV. Maybe without the ordinal you could argue you are showing more respect for your father’s wishes. Going with the III seems silly - there was a III - he stopped using it - as do other people that die without changing their name. You can of course use that too, but it seems a little weird.
I know a guy, let’s call him Bill, who wanted to become a software developer. He had gotten pretty good when he was caught one day trying to Bill++ using a version of Ann that was too recent and not yet recognized as a release candidate. His defense was that there were no significant API differences between Ann 99 and Ann 95 and that the component was an exemplar of mature software development practices. The judge said that that was an invalid argument and added his data to the protection register. The moral of the story is to review the release history of all of your components before you open an IO port.
