It may be impossible to prove, but I’m interested if there are any extremely long cases of the same name being passed on like a George Michael Thomas the 12th. Does anyone know an example of this?
I know of a family where the firstborn male has been getting the same firstname since at least the 15th century (IIRC, my classmate was the documented 23rd), but of course different second lastnames. Mind you, when your lastname is Cristo and you’re from Spain, the joke of naming the firstborn male Jesús doesn’t so much beg itself as exclaim “gimme sumthin’ for the baby, sir!” The line is now broken, as Chus died when we were 15yo, but there’s a slew of other Jesuses Cristo from his brothers and male cousins.
Another local family includes firstborn males named Agustín as far back as the 13th, but I don’t know whether there’s an uninterrupted line, there might have been one or two firstborns who chose the priesthood.
Traditional, oh-so-correct usage in the English-speaking world requires that when the oldest in a series dies, everyone else with that name moves up a spot in the rotation. So, suppose there’s a Thomas Rott, Sr; a Thomas Rott, Jr.; a Thomas Rott III; and a Thomas Rott IV, all living a life of ease, comfort and correctness. One day Thomas Rott, Sr., dies unexpectedly of a overdose of etiquette, whereupon IV becomes III, III becomes Jr., Jr. becomes Sr., and Sr. becomes glad to be rid of the confusion and quite content to have a nice long nap. In the U.S. at least, this quaint solution is now a custom more honour’d in the breach than the observance.
As a Jr. with a son who’s the III, the problem with altering your name is you have all those records, forms, licenses, etc. with your full name including suffix on it. If there was just me, it wouldn’t be so bad, but when anything comes for “Jr.” like a jury summons, which neither wold be expecting, to whom does it refer.
The longest one that I know of personally someone whose name carries the VI (yep, sixth) suffix.
There is a William Howard Taft V, great-great-grandson of the 27th president. He got married in 2005, so if he has a son, there might be a sixth one.
There’s also a Theodore Roosevelt V (also a president’s great-great-grandson). He got married in 2008, so there might be a sixth one of that as well.
And President Theodore Roosevelt’s father isn’t counted in the sequence, so Theodore Roosevelt V is actually the sixth one with that name.
I give you Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart, all alive now and all VIs: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-04-07-civil-war-anniversary-ancestors_N.htm
I seem to recall there being a titled family in Germany (dukes of some kind maybe?), in which every single male family member has an identical name (Rupert? Robert? Can’t recall rightly). So the tradition in that family was that the numbering scheme didn’t go from father to son to grandson, but simply in birth order, so Robert XXXV could be the brother or cousin or uncle or nephew of Robert XXXIV and Robert XXXVI. And at some point when the numbers get too big, they just start over again from I.
The Princes Reuss.
Very interesting.
In the late '70s, I met a kid from North Carolina who swore he was Firstname Lastname XXIII (“the twenty-third”). His older sister said it was true. No one believed him. Didn’t occur to us to check with their parents or ask to see a birth certificate. I’ve tried Googling the kid’s name, but none of the hits returned seem to match this kid I knew.
I’m the sixth in a row. Different middle initials, but six straight Richards.
Trivia: Frida, the redhead from ABBA, is a widow of Prince Heinrich Ruzzo Reuss of Plauen
Do people in the UK use the “George Michael Thomas, George Michael Thomas II, George Michael Thomas III, etc.” naming scheme? Because among the nobility they seem instead to just inherit the title (First Duke of Earl, Second Duke of Earl, etc.).
Do you go by Richard Q. Jay the 6th?
Your name never changes; your style might. (The first is your legal identity, the second what you may popularly be known as.)
Like this:
Henry Hobart Holmes is born, the son and grandson of men of the same name. He is therefore Henry Hobart Holmes III.
He is elected to Parliament and hence gets the prefix Rt. Hon. – he is now the Right Honourable Henry Hobart Holmes III.
Having done something valuable for his country, he is knighted. He is now known as Sir Henry Hobart Holmes. If either or both of his father and grandfather had been knighted, you would continue to use the III as the distinguisher. If a membero of a knightly order, he gets to use their initials after his name.
The P.M. decides the work he’s doing is more important than having him campaign for his Parliamentary seat, and so advised the Queen to ennoble him. He becomes Henry Hobart, Lord Holmes of Barking. He continues to use the initials of the knightly order after his name. His namesake son, though, is Henry Hobart Holmes IV.
His father, grandfather, and the great-uncle who was a duke and his son and heir, all die. Our Henry now inherits the dukedom, and becomes His Grace, Henry Hobart (Holmes), Duke of Radnorshire.
All the way through he’s kept the same name, but has had several formal courtesy styles used in addition to or in place of it.
George Foreman has 11 children, and each of his five sons is named George. Not the longest line, but perhaps the broadest…!
Yeah, but stop right there - AFAIK the style “Henry Hobart Holmes III” (or indeed “Henry Hobart Holmes Jnr”) would never be used in the UK. At least, I never met or heard of anyone there who was a “Jnr” or a subsequent number. As far as I can see, Henry Hobart Holmes the son and grandson of men of the same name will be known simply as Henry Hobart Holmes.
Also, giving your son the same first name and middle name would be vanishingly rare. Even giving your son just the same first name is pretty uncommon unless you’re a peer of the realm.