“This is Thomson, without a P, as in ‘Venezuela’!”
As spoofed in Love and Death:
Of course there was Old Gregor and his son Young Gregor. Oddly enough, Young Gregor’s son was older than Old Gregor. Nobody could figure out how that happened. And everytime I asked they’d slap me.
I think in the books there are also characters named Asha and Osha, but for the TV adaptation they changed Osha (Greyjoy) to Yara to avoid confusion.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned The Bobs from Office Space. It’s a notable example because it’s done completely on purpose and not for any plot reason. It’s done for comedic effect, for subtle naturalistic realism/avant-garde naturalism, etc.
One episode of Gilmore Girls has Kirk mention that a relative is bringing over a cat named Kirk to his house (actually, I can’t find a transcript for the episode, so I might be a little off- it’s possible he got a cat named Kirk, or was taking care of someone’s cat that was named Kirk, etc.), so he asks other people to now refer to him as “Human Kirk” to avoid all confusion (the Gilmore Girls then say “Bye, human Kirk!”).
The Lectroids in Buckaroo Banzai are named John, but they do have different surnames (most famously John Bigbooté)
Brian
Good one! And welcome.
I wonder if Office Space inspired the backstory on The Office about Dunder Mifflin’s two founders: Robert Dunder and Robert Mifflin.
So this talk of two Tony Sopranos---- I assume that is what The Simpsons were parodying with Fat Tony and his cousin Fit Tony a.k.a. Fit-Fat Tony ,a.k.a. The New and Improved Fat Tony.
See also Captain America’s pal James “Bucky” Barnes (AKA The Winter Soldier) — who never gets mistaken for Iron Man’s pal James ”Rhodey” Rhodes (AKA War Machine).
Nobody would ever confuse those two. Rhodey is…shorter.
Self faceslap doesn’t even begin to cover it, Dupont/d is the heart of the joke! In my defense, I got distracted failing to get the inline image with the pair in the thread.
As a (hopefully amusing) aside, I once worked at a place where we had three Marys. ‘Big Mary’, ‘Little Mary’, and ‘Crazy Mary’.
The Two Jakes.
The TV series New Girl had two characters with the first name Winston - but this wasn’t revealed until near the end of the run, as one always used just his last name, Schmidt.
In the movie If Looks Could Kill Richard Grieco’s character Michael Corben is mistaken for Secret Agent Michael Corben.
silenus wrote:
How many Marys are there in the Bible?
According to Google, six: Mary, mother of Jesus; Mary Magdalene; Mary of Bethany; Mary mother of James the Younger; Mary mother of John Mark; and Mary of Rome. I always wondered if “Mary” was Aramaic for “woman.”
All of those were named after Aaron’s sister. The New Testament ones usually use the Hellenized version of the name, while the Old Testament one uses the Hebrew form, but “Miriam” = “Maria” = “Mary”.
Confusingly, “Maria” is also the Hellenized form of a Roman name of different origin, the feminine form of “Marius”.
My understanding is that, confusing as it is to modern readers/viewers, this is reflective of Roman naming customs.
During that time period, a male Roman citizen had three names:
- A praenomen (personal name; e.g., Gaius, Titus, Marcus)
- A nomen (clan name)
- A cognomen (family name)
But, an issue is that there were very few praenomens which were in common use. The article indicates that fewer than 25 male praenomens were commonly used, and only 12 of them accounted for the vast majority.
And, then, in some cases, a person might also have an “agnomen” name, typically given for particular service to Rome. In the example names you show, “Germanicus” and “Brittanicus” were likely given for service in Germania and Brittanica, while “Augustus” was apparently a title/name given to the Emperor.
Kathy (with a k!) and Cathy (with a c!) from The Kids in the Hall is a deliberate case.
Also the Daves (I know, I know)
Also, the 30 Helens Agree sketches from the first season.
If we’re counting comedy sketches, then Bruces.