One time when I called Mr Cazzle at work, I dialled the wrong number by mistake. The phone was answered by a voice I didn’t know, and I asked to be put through to (Mr Cazzle’s real name). I was put on hold for a moment, and then someone else picked up to tell me he’d finished up the day before. I didn’t understand, so they explained that he had returned overseas to where he was from.
It took a minute or two to straighten out the fact that I had called the wrong company, and that they coincidentally had had a contractor with my husband’s first and last name working for them until the previous day. Then we had to find out if the gentleman in question was my father-in-law, who has the same name as my husband, lives overseas and works in the industry of the company I’d called by accident. It wasn’t him, but when we told him the story he was amused - he has never met the man in question, but has had a few mix-ups over the years due to the whole same-name-similar-job thing.
Nothing quite as interesting as what’s been posted here, but one of my stepsisters has the same initials as me – JCF. I’ve got dibs on it, since I had it first, and she’s conveniently changing the last initial next summer.
My dad’s final wife has the same first and middle names as my wife. A few times, for holiday gifts, my stepmom wrote checks apparently to herself. Then we bought a car from my stepmom, and that had the folks at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles scratching their heads.
When I was about 18 I’d just finished with a Louise Davies, the next girl I got together with was another Louise Davies.
My sister shares the name of the victim of a famous child murder case a few years back. It was weird hearing her name on TV all the time. Even weirder for her.
I was at school with a Peter Sutcliffe, though I’d left and lost contact with him by the time The Yorkshire Ripper was caught.
My brother and a lawyer in town share the same first name, MI and last name. This lawyer was a patron at The Cleveland Playhouse the same year my brother had season tickets there. The playhouse would send my brother special opening night party tickets intended for the lawyer, and my very honest brother would send them back. I would have just gone to the party! Now I work in the same building as this lawyer, and I can’t wait until he stops in and buys something (we get everyone’s name and phone number).
My ex-husband has a half-brother who is about 15 years older than him, and has his same first and last name, and they lived in the same town for many years and attended the same schools, though fortunately the age difference kept people from getting too confused. What kind of father (besides George Foreman) names his two sons the same thing? No imagination?
Mine isn’t all that interesting, but my first name is Esther, which is quite uncommon among twentysomethings like me. My last name is VERY uncommon though. No one seems to have it, and many people comment on how unusual it is. Anyway, there’s an up and coming fashion designer from (I think) Germany with my exact first and last names. It’s kind of odd.
I still have another one that really blew my mind but I want to tell you about my friend’s first.
My friend placed a long distance phone call to a family of cousins 2000 miles away. He hadn’t spoken with a member of that family for many years. The conversation went something like this:
My Friend: “Hi, is this the Pendleton residence?”
Relative: “Yes it is.”
MF: “Well this is your cousin Fred Pendleton from South Carolina.”
R: “Hi Fred, how are you?”
MF: “Fine. How’s Aunt Martha?”
R: “I don’t know anybody named Martha.”
MF: "Is your name Pendleton?
R: “Yes.”
MF: “Is this 555-2764?”
R: “No. It’s 555-2765.”
Whereupon he redialed and got through to his relatives.
Can you believe it? He dialed the wrong number and got somebody with the same last name as the person he was trying to call. In the actual story he says that he spoke with the person for a few minutes before they realized they didn’t know what each other was talking about.
I moved to a rual, remote area of Minnesota after living my entire life in busy northwest Indiana. After renting a cabin on the lake for several years I decided to buy a house. The house was in an even more remote area. Population around 400. I go to the tiny mobile home that is the post office and the post master says, Mr Drafty, meet Mrs. Drafty…
long pause…
a lovely woman buying stamps shakes my hand. She is indeed Mrs. Drafty!! She and her husband are my next door (3 miles) neighbors, and two of his brothers (all Mr. Draftys) all live on the same road.
We are thinking or renaming the town Draftyville
Now I know that same last name isnt such a big deal but the fact that I am in no way related to any of them I live next door on the same road and there being only 125 homes in town is pretty fantastic odds.
Even though it’s supposed to be a very popular name, out of the 200 or so of my friends and aquaintances around here, I know ONE other Steve. I find that odd. Especially since among that number are numerous doubles and multiples of less common names, men’s and women’s (and shared). Go figure. There are only two people in this state with my last name (besides me), but hundreds have it in Texas.
I get this a lot. I have one of the top five most common last names in the US, but my first name is only around 120th or so (thankfully).
The first mixup happened in SF when a music shop called and told me my tuba was repaired and ready for pickup. Not my tuba, I told them. Second was also in SF when I showed up at a sherrif’s work prgram and a guy with my name had a lot of outstanding warrants for his arrest. Took some talking to convince them I was not their guy and only had a few hours to perform.
Latest one was after we first moved to our current residence. Our city had had a hockey team for little over a year and apparently someone the team with my name on was quite the ladies man. Several drunken women called my house at the wee hours on Friday and Saturday night wanting to know when we were gonna hook up again. They were astonished to learn I was married and had kids (why hadn’t I mentioned this at the bar?). I usually set them straight after funning with them or let them talk to my SO.
I also found out that another namesake is quite a college football hero in a nearby state.
Got a call early one Saturday morning asking for me by first and last name. It was some bank wanting to collect on overdue payments – a bank I have never heard of, and I told them so. “Well, is this [my phone number] and [some address in another city]?” “Yes, that’s my number, but I don’t live in [that city] – I live [here]. You’ve got the wrong person. I never heard of your company and I’m not overdue on any payments to anyone.”
They got nasty, and I hung up on them.
Later, when I was coherent, I did some checking and found out that the other me does indeed live in that other city, and at the time her phone number was one number in the exchange off from mine (my number starts with, say, 456 and hers started with 556). So they misdialed, apparently. Never did hear any more about it, so they must have either found her or given up.
Every so often I google her and it looks like she still lives there, but with a different number (presumably to dodge all the collectors!).
Both my first and last name are fairly common. There were two of us at my college, which once caused some fun at the financial aid office, but everything worked out OK.
In my entire life, I’ve only ever heard of one single celebrity who had my first name in North America (my name is an antiquated one). That celebrity was also the only one I’d ever heard of anywhere that shared my name.
Up until the past ten years, we were also the only one’s in Canada with my last name, and all the one’s in the U.S. were either related to me or were related to another more famous family with the same name.
So no, no I can’t say I’ve met anyone who shares my name.
I’m an Ed Murphy, and you wouldn’t believe the grief it give me sometimes (a slightly famous actor has the same name). In a bizarre twist, my best man is named Matt LeBlanc, (same as the fellow from Friends), who grew up in the same town as the “other” Matt LeBlanc.
I’ve run into only a few other Ed Murphys, and it’s always a kick to introduce yourself to another with the same name.
This past May, I was catering at a pretty big event. There were approximately 750 people in the room. As I was pouring wine at a table, a woman the next table over introduced herself to the man sitting next to her - if he wasn’t hearing impaired, she wouldn’t have said her name as loudly as she did. It was my mother’s name, first and last (last name is not common).
I was born in HistoricTown. My family moved when I was two years old. We moved quite a bit overseas etc. and thirty years later I didn’t even know what my birthplace was like. My new wife decide to surprise me with a trip to HistoricTown on my 32nd birthday. When we got there I was struck by the beauty, it was an old Southern city with antebellum mansions, spanish moss draping the trees, etc. But downtown was deserted. Businesses had vacated and the effect was like a ghost town. My wife and I were remarking on the desolation when I turned and saw a small sign in a store window. It was a handmade address sign, made with those self adhesive letters, for someone who was apparently living there. I saw another one, a woodburned one, on a wooden door by the store. They both simply stated my first and last name: J**** C********. We were both amazed. It was like a Twilight Zone scene. I sat on the ledge with my name in the background as she took my picture.
I’ve never met anyone with my first and last name, which is actually surprising since both are very common. If you were to google my name, most of the hits would concern a fairly obscure US Army general from the war of 1812. Tons of other hits, including a myname.com(not mine), a Live Journal that is also not mine, baby photos(not of me), a book profile on Amazon(again, not written by me) and numerous genealogies. None of the hits are mine actually, because I don’t really have a web presence. I am sure I will bump into someone with my name someday, as the odds say I almost must. My surname is top 5 in the US and my first name is popular and getting more so.
After leaving college I moved back in with my parents. Friends who didn’t have my number would call information and get someone else with my name who lived in the same city.
I’ve also got the name of an old baseball player and a disc jockey from New York.
My brother was listed as one of the creative staff of Futurama, but he never let me get in on it.
In February, I bought a GE dryer at a Wal-Mart. In April, about 900 miles away, my mother bought a GE microwave at a Home Depot.
GE somehow mailed me the warranty information associated with the microwave, in September. I can only assume that my fathers name was in there somehow, as we have the same name. But our name is not terribly uncommon, so this must happen to other people who share a name.
I wonder how often people get GE warranty information for appliances they didn’t purchase…
