We must include George Foreman in this discussion.
His son is George Forman Jr. His other son is George Foreman III. His other son is George Foreman IV. His other son is George Foreman V. His other son is George Foreman VI. Thankfully he gave his girls more unique names, like Freeda George and Georgetta
Don’t give your kid the same name as you. It screws things up. Read this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14457671&posted=1#post14457671
Encountered on a marker in Chicago’s Oakwoods Cemetery:
Little Angel
William H. Keene, Jr. IV
Oct. 11, 1993
Oct. 11, 1993
I don’t know the story, but theorize that perhaps this is the scheme:
a - William H. Keene, Sr.
b - William H. Keene, Jr. <–––– much beloved or admired, perhaps a war casualty
c - William H. Keene, Jr. II
d - William H. Keene, Jr. III
e - William H. Keene, Jr. IV
The marker dates, of course, suggest tragic circumstances, so the baby’s name may have been chosen posthumously.
I’m the fourth consecutive Richard of my line. As I’m 40 and a single dad of a little girl I’m likely the last, as the ladies don’t so much like the single dad angle, but oh well.
I’ve never been called “Richard ***** IV,” because
We all had different middle names (the family convention is that the boy’s middle name be his maternal grandfather’s name, so hopefully if I do ever have a son my wife doesn’t have a Dad with a lame ass name,) and
It just sounds pretentious and silly.
When necessary people referred to me as “Jr.” when I had to be distinguished from my Dad, but it rarely came up.
My father was never referred to as a Jr. or III, largely because his Dad, my grandfather, was generally called “Dick,” while was he always “Richard” or “Rick,” depending on context, and so differentiation wasn’t necessary. Anyway, he hated his father, for good reason; I love my father, for good reason, and so do not mind being a Jr.
As for it allegedly resulting in credit confusion, again, that never came up. Major credit’s done by Social Insurance Number here, and anyway we have different middle names. You can avoid that shit if you just keep an eye on your bills and whatnot.
I’ve got a good friend who we’ve always known at Trey, my other friend saw a piece of mail addressed to him and found out his real name was Roy the third. He hates being called Roy, so of course we call him that all the time. I asked him one time if they call his dad “Deuce”. If looks could kill I woulda been dead.
“They call him Junior you fucking dumbass.”
LOL
Bill Gates III, the founder of Microsoft, is the fourth person in his family to be called William Henry Gates. His father, who is now called Bill Gates, Sr., was called Bill Gates, Jr. until later in his life, so at least some families follow the practice Miss Manners described (see Bill Gates Sr. - Wikipedia. and Family of Bill Gates - Wikipedia).
I once dated a V, for about 2 years. We always said if we had a kid it would NOT be a VI.
Then I married a IV, and when we had our son, we did NOT name him the same and make him a V. I wanted him to have his OWN name. Plus, the handed down name was bland on the order of John James Smith and I wanted a more interesting, less common name.
just got it.
Or you could by size, as in The Sopranos: Big Pussy and Little Pussy.
Or Charles the Short, for that matter.
I only wish to add that the other posters are correct, except of course in the case of Zipo Bibrok 5 x 10[sup]8[/sup].
Don’t know how that took 50 posts to come up on this board!
I am familiar with, but don’t know him personally, a person with a suffix of VI. He is still alive, and his five predecessors–all with same first and middle names–are on findagrave.com. I don’t know whether he has any children, or if so, if he has a son with VII.
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:13, topic:602429”]
OFFICIAL MODERATOR ANNOUNCEMENT:
I changed the title of the thread. KneadToKnow’s comment in post #4 was perfectly logical at the time it was posted.
[/QUOTE]
Very helpful post. Would be even more so if it included the former title.
I have suggested this as SDMB policy: posts that change thread titles will contain the former title (especially when an earlier post has made reference to the original title). The reaction has generally been along the lines of “Yes, that’s would be easy and useful - perhaps we’ll do so occasionally.”