Suppose I wanted to name my first-born son after my grandfather, PeeWee Don Lendervedder (not his real name). Would that give my son any claim to a “Jr.” or “II” title?
Suppose, now, my grandfather named his first son PeeWee Don Lendervedder, making my uncle PeeWee Don Lendervedder, Jr. Then uncle PeeWee named his son PeeWee Don Lendervedder III. Would my little PeeWee Don be the IV? Or does it have to be a father-to-son sequence?
Happy
Unless your grandfather is royalty, it’s a father-son kind of thing. Queen Elizabeth II of England springs to mind…
OK, here are the rules—but I must add that very few people follow them.
If everyone is living, the great-grandfather would be PeeWee Don Lendervedder, Sr. His son is PeeWee Don Lendervedder, Jr., his son is PeeWee Don Lendervedder III and his son is PeeWee Don Lendervedder IV.
When someone dies, everyone gets bumped up one notch—otherwise, you would eventually wind up with PeeWee Don Lendervedder XII. If PeeWee Don Lendervedder, Jr., dies before his father, then his son becomes PeeWee Don Lendervedder II.
Honest, I’m not making this up, it’s all in Miss Manners and Emily Post.
Not an expert, but I’ve had it explained to me that the “Jr.” is father to son, while the II, III is a further continuation of the same line. Also been told that the “Jr.” is part of the legal name and is not dropped when the father dies.
I’ll wait for further support or abuse!
What does the gentle reader do, then, when the Jr., II, III, etc is part of the legal name? Must I change my birth certificate, social security card, drivers license, etc. when Gramps dies as I will now be a Jr. and no longer a II?
Maybe I can just pretend that my name is a title like the pope’s and I get to keep it forever and noone else can ever have it.
Miss Manners is full of it! Doesn’t make sense from a leal standpoint
Since I am a III myself, this was explained to me at a young age. Sr., Jr. and III ad infinitum are for direct lineage only. Doesn’t really matter if the Sr., Jr. etc. are living because the suffixes are part of a legal name. The III is included on my birth certificate, passport and drivers license.
It’s a good thing too, because having the same name as my father and grandfather has caused me some problems - my father’s mortgage was listed on my credit report for several years without me knowing it. If it got reset when someone died, I’d have had 3 names…I’d have become Jr. when my grandfather died and Sr. when my father died. If that had happened I might have gotten 3 times the junk mail…
Jr., II, III, IV, etc. have no legal standing whatsoever. Your legal name is what you say it is. If you have a father or grandfather with the same name who is still living, or recently enough deceased that his existence can cause confusion, then keep the suffix. If not, drop it. The children of very famous people, and those who have become famous as Jr.'s or III’s, often keep the suffixes to avoid confusion.
The practice of passing on the same name for generations is a social custom, as is the use of suffixes. As such, only social rules apply, and socially, it is frowned upon to number yourselves ad infinitumas though you were royalty. (“Yes, I’m Charles XVII of Flatbush; kiss my ring.”)
The solution for the “whaddoIdowhen” crowd is to NEVER use these suffixes as part of your legal name. There’s no law against it, but as GWVet has already attested, it didn’t help – he still had his father on his credit report. If your name is just John Smith, you can still call yourself Jr., Sr., III, or whatever you like, and change it as you like, in business and social circles. There are, after all, other means of dintinguishing yourself from your forebears.
I have read similar sources to Eve’s reckoning.
The Senior, Junior, and III used not to come up much because people didn’t live long enough to see their grandparents as often. But the original plan of using these names was to differentiate between people with the same name, but of different generations.
Nowadays, it’s sort of a way making your family into nobility where you pass down a name through generations. Not that any government agency in the United States really cares what you call yourself.
On the other hand, this is America, man. I’m pretty sure you could name your kid Gerneral Elvis Garfunkle von Contraceptive the 98th if you feel like it.