What is the legality of using the same name for more than one of your children?
George Foreman’s 5 sons are all named “George”.
And who could forget “Larry, Darrel, and Darrel” of Newhart fame?
I don’t know if there is a law on that at all.
Yes, George Foreman did not have a problem:
http://cgi1.usatoday.com/mchat/20010110003/tscript.htm
So five of his sons and even a grilling machine got his name. 
I dunno, I think everyone should be named Dave. It’s such a perfect name.
I know six siblings all with the same first name. They are all named after their father, male and female alike, and go by their middle names.
Just out of interest, does this bit cause red faces over there in the US? (It means something [sup]cough, splutter[/sup] quite, errr… well, you know, over here in the UK)
Hmmmm…
Mangetout, we’re usually able to set that aside when reading aloud to our kids. 
(Thank heavens he didn’t have any character dive into it.)
Of course, we also call our belted hip purses “fanny packs,” but that does not have the same connotation, here.
I’ve often wanted to rewrite it (i.e. change the name, not just skip over it, otherwise my daughter will notice the missing names), but I don’t feel it would be right.
I went to school with the last 3 daughters of a family of 9 that did that. All of the daughters (7) were named Mary, all of the sons (2) were named Joseph. The first daughter was called Mary, the rest used their middle names. The ones I was friendly with were M. Kathleen and M. Theresa. We thought it was a bit odd, but we were used to it.
Wouldn’t it be worse if you changed the name, though? I mean, if you leave it intact, unless your daughter has heard the term elsewhere, it’ll just be that much more Seussian nonsense. If, on the other hand, you change it, she’ll catch on eventually, and start wondering why.
This is my dilemma; unchanged, she will someday recite it to a group of adults and wonder why their stronges reaction (be it mirth or shock) occurs halfway through.
- The Tragically Hip, Everytime You Go
- Bruce McColluch, (The Kids in the Hall,) These are the Daves I Know
You can never have too many Daves.
This was one of my favorite Suess stories when I was a kid, for obvious reasons. I was just delighted that my name caused such a brouhaha.
FTR, my parents named all their kids in alphabetical order – Alan, Barbara, Craig, David, Edward.
Sorta like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
It was sometimes an ordeal meeting one of my parents friends, because they’d always go, “Well, which one are you? ABCD…”
Sheesh.
For too long the John and Peters of the world have been the foremost male names, it’s time to break out the Daves.
As a youngster, I always passed up the “Soggy Muff” line and giggled instead at “Oliver Boliver Butt.”
My middle name is Peter and my last name is Johnson.
I could kill my parents sometimes.
(seriously, I thought I was the only one who remembered this story - mainly because it’s bundled with my favorite Seuss, the Sneetches)
I’m glad I’m one of those damn cool Daves.
RickJay wrote:
Great song - “Some of us are Davids/but most of us are Daves…”
DAVEW0071 wrote:
But apparently, you can have too many Dave W’s. I was quite amazed to find that “DaveW” hadn’t already been taken when I registered here. I’ve usually got to resort to adding numbers or coming up with something more original.
Mangetout wrote:
IANAL, but I believe you can call yourself (and by extension your children) anything you want. John and Jane Doe can name their child “Poopoohead Widebottom” (or worse) if they really wanted to. It sets them up for all sorts of problems later on in life, such as “If this is your kid, why’s he named Widebottom instead of Doe?” or “Poopoohead’s therapy will cost you seventy bazillion dollars, Mr. Doe.”
But, according to Cecil, some places do have legal authority to ‘reject’ a chosen name. Perhaps they do enough research to refuse to let two kids in the same family have the same name, also? Dunno.
- Dave W.
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“My dream is of a day where every SDMB poster will have a quote of mine in their sig.” - Arnold Winkelried
[hijack]judt thought i’d throw out my relitive’s funny name: Fellatio Cunnilingus Matthews. no joke.[/hijack]