My family's duplicate names 👯

General Name Discussion
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After seeing a recent discussion post about the dilemma in the Let Us Name Your [name_f]Baby[/name_f] segment, I wanted to share my husband’s family’s naming tradition of repeated names for direct honor names. (see picture below). We’ll call them the Bensons. I think many of you will find this interesting since the Bensons use first name honors more than most families seem to do. Middle name honors are obviously very common among many families, but the Bensons like to honor people by using the same first name as another family member, both in the cases of Sr/Jr situations, but also in a situations like aunt/niece who share a name, which was new to me. I will say that this did make it a lot easier for me to learn everyone’s names when we got married because there were a lot of duplicates haha :laughing:

I’ve actually been wanting to share this pedigree chart with you all for a while now, but I didn’t get around to it because I hadn’t taken the time to change the names in the file haha. And though I did change all the names for privacy reasons, but I tried to choose new names that kept the same vibes, popularity level, and era of their real names. Names are color-coded so that the same names are the same color, making it easier to figure out how the names are connected. Below, I included some additional information and tips for understanding the format of the pedigree chart. Because it is a lot!

Benson Family Tree of Repeated Names
Benson Family Tree of Repeated Names2000×1080 153 KB
Explanations about the pedigree chart

This is set up like a traditional vertical pedigree chart that describes relationships of parents to children and also of spouses and siblings.

  • People on the same horizontal plane are in the same generation. I added the gray line background and generation numbers for clarity.
  • For the most part, I only displayed the names with duplicates to make it more simple.
  • The names in color are the duplicates, and they are coordinated so all the people with the same name are shown in the same color as each other.
  • The names in black are when there is not anyone else with their same name. I also put “male” or “female” in spots where a filler is needed for clarity, but when their name is not a duplicate name.
  • Married people are joined together by a horizontal bar with open circles. (e.g. [name_f]Gen[/name_f] +1’s [name_f]Deborah[/name_f] “Debbie” and [name_f]Reese[/name_f] [name_m]Scott[/name_m] are married).
  • The vertical down arrow indicates the children of the couple/person.(e.g. [name_f]Debbie[/name_f] and Reese’s kids are [name_f]Reese[/name_f] [name_m]Scott[/name_m] II, [name_f]Meagan[/name_f], and +3 other kids).
  • Things like “+3 kids” indicate that the parents have more children beyond the ones shown. Not all spouses are shown either. For example, [name_f]Carrie[/name_f] has a husband and two additional children, but I didn’t add them for simplicity. I also did not add myself or our daughter to my husband’s spot because we aren’t relevant to this chart.
  • I used a dotted line at the top for the family ties that would have been too complicated to add pedigree lines to. In [name_f]Gen[/name_f] 0, [name_f]Louise[/name_f] has a sister named [name_f]Cheryl[/name_f] (who they named their first daughter after) and [name_m]Ted[/name_m] has a cousin named [name_f]Deborah[/name_f] (who they named their second daughter after).

Where I fit in: [name_f]My[/name_f] husband is [name_f]Reese[/name_f] [name_m]Scott[/name_m] II [Gen +2], grandson of [name_f]Louise[/name_f] and [name_m]Ted[/name_m]. [name_f]Reese[/name_f] and I do have a son together, but we did not follow the [name_m]Benson[/name_m] naming traditions. So our son has his own name instead of being [name_f]Reese[/name_f] [name_m]Scott[/name_m] III because I was not a fan of giving my son the same given name as my FIL and my husband since it was already too confusing for me and everyone else to have two of them haha (among a few other reasons). So far, we are the only ones in the extended [name_m]Benson[/name_m] Family who didn’t continue a naming tradition that was already started.

[name_f]Louise[/name_f] and [name_m]Edward[/name_m] “Ted” [Gen 0] are my husband’s grandparents. I started with them because they are the ones who started it all.

  • Their kids are in [name_f]Gen[/name_f] +1, displayed as [name_f]Cheryl[/name_f], [name_f]Deborah[/name_f] “Debbie”, [name_m]Edward[/name_m] “Ted”, and [name_f]Carrie[/name_f]. [name_f]Carrie[/name_f] is the only one of their children who doesn’t have the same first name as another relative.
  • Their grandkids are [name_f]Gen[/name_f] +2, and their great-grandkids are [name_f]Gen[/name_f] +3. For perspective, the people in [name_f]Gen[/name_f] +3 are all still kids under the age of 10.
  • [name_f]Louise[/name_f] and Ted’s parents are in [name_f]Gen[/name_f] -1 (only Ted’s parents are shown).

[name_f]Clarity[/name_f] on some specific names and nicknames:

  • Both Reeses have [name_f]Reese[/name_f] as their first name and [name_m]Scott[/name_m] as their middle name, and both of them go by only their first name of [name_f]Reese[/name_f].
  • The [name_m]Edward[/name_m] line is not an official Sr/Jr/III line because each person has their own middle name, so the tradition is to pass down the first name of [name_m]Edward[/name_m]. There are 6 [name_m]Edwards[/name_m], and only one generation was skipped (the dad in [name_f]Gen[/name_f] -2 has a different name). Everyone has gone by [name_m]Ted[/name_m] until the [name_f]Gen[/name_f] +3 boy who goes by his middle name.
  • [name_f]Louise[/name_f] named her daughter the same name as her sister [name_f]Cheryl[/name_f] [Gen 0]. Louise’s daughter [name_f]Cheryl[/name_f] [Gen +1] made that into a tradition by also naming her daughter after her sister (so both are Deborah). [name_f]Cheryl[/name_f] [Gen +1]'s other daughter [[name_f]Gen[/name_f] +2 female] continued that aunt/niece tradition by naming her daughter [name_m]Ashley[/name_m] [Gen +3] after her sister [name_m]Ashley[/name_m] [Gen +2]. I can’t imagine having a daughter with the same name as my living sister! This also means that [name_f]Cheryl[/name_f] [Gen +1], [name_f]Deborah[/name_f] [Gen +2], and [name_m]Ashley[/name_m] [Gen +3] all have the same name as their aunt. I cant picture having a living aunt or niece with my name either.
  • In a similar vein, [name_f]Gen[/name_f] +1 [name_f]Debbie[/name_f] really wanted to name her daughter [name_f]Cheryl[/name_f] after her sister, but she decided against because didn’t want to leave out [name_f]Carrie[/name_f]. If she would have gone with her original plan, then both her and her sister would have a daughter named after the other. So a mom [name_f]Deborah[/name_f] [Gen+1] would have a [name_f]Cheryl[/name_f] daughter, and a mom [name_f]Cheryl[/name_f] [Gen +1] would still have her [name_f]Deborah[/name_f] [Gen +2] daughter.
  • [name_f]Ruth[/name_f] “Laurel” [Gen +2] was named after the [name_f]Gen[/name_f] -1 [name_f]Ruth[/name_f], but she just goes by her middle name of [name_f]Laurel[/name_f] that is not named after anyone.
  • [name_f]Deborah[/name_f] and [name_m]Parker[/name_m] [both [name_f]Gen[/name_f] +2] have a daughter [name_f]Elaine[/name_f] with the same name as their sister-in-law (who married [name_f]Gen[/name_f] +2’s “male”, who is Deborah’s brother). However, the [name_f]Gen[/name_f] +3 [name_f]Elaine[/name_f] was not named after her aunt [name_f]Elaine[/name_f]. Aunt [name_f]Elaine[/name_f] had already married into the family by the time that [name_f]Gen[/name_f] +3 [name_f]Elaine[/name_f] had been born, but her mom had chosen that name years prior after she had a dream that she named her child [name_f]Elaine[/name_f]. So that is an example of duplicate names that are not an honor!
  • [name_m]Michael[/name_m] [name_m]David[/name_m] III [Gen +3] was originally called the [name_m]Michael[/name_m] [name_m]David[/name_m] to distinguish him from his dad [name_m]Michael[/name_m] and his grandpa [name_m]Mike[/name_m]. When he was only two years old, he decided that he did not want to go by [name_m]Michael[/name_m] [name_m]David[/name_m] anymore, and chose to go by just [name_m]David[/name_m] instead. His real first name is 3 syllables, so the combo of his first and middle name was 5 syllables, and he probably didn’t want to go by his first+middle all the time because it is long.
  • [name_m]Grant[/name_m] [name_m]Simon[/name_m] IV’s name is not from the [name_m]Benson[/name_m] Family, and it comes after a skipped generation when the name wasn’t used. Grant’s dad is not the III, but has his own name because he is a twin and they didn’t want to give the name to just one of them. So Grant’s paternal grandpa is the III, great grandpa is the [name_m]Jr[/name_m], and great-great grandpa is the Sr. Interestingly enough, since Grant’s mom [name_f]Carrie[/name_f] is the one who born into the [name_m]Benson[/name_m] Family, and since the [name_m]Grant[/name_m] [name_m]Simon[/name_m] line follows Grant’s paternal side, then the [name_m]Grant[/name_m] [name_m]Simon[/name_m] line existed independent of the Bensons and their naming traditions. I don’t think that [name_f]Carrie[/name_f] and her husband would have brought back the [name_m]Grant[/name_m] line by naming their son the IV if Carrie’s family didn’t already have the extensive naming traditions that it does. It made sense for them to bring back the [name_m]Grant[/name_m] [name_m]Simon[/name_m] line instead of doing a [name_m]Jr[/name_m] of her husband (which both of her sisters did with their husbands and first son) since a naming line already existed in her husband’s family.

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Does your family have a lot of Sr/Jr/III in it? Any other kinds of repeated names?

I’d love to hear people’s thoughts and/or personal experiences!

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Wow thanks for sharing! It’s so cool to see all those duplicated names. Further back in my family tree there are lots of people named after family members. Often the middle name and first name swapped with each generation like [name_m]Cornelis[/name_m] [name_m]Willem[/name_m] → [name_m]Willem[/name_m] [name_m]Cornelis[/name_m] → [name_m]Cornelis[/name_m] [name_m]Willem[/name_m]

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This is so interesting! Thank you for sharing!

We have some similar things in my family – my paternal grandpa is [name_m]Thomas[/name_m] [name_m]John[/name_m] ‘John’ (fake name), then my dad is [name_m]Thomas[/name_m] [name_m]John[/name_m] [name_m]Jr[/name_m]. ‘Thomas’ or ‘Tom’, then my brother is UnrelatedFN [name_m]John[/name_m]. The shared middle name is rarer than [name_m]John[/name_m], though it’s not super uncommon.

[name_f]My[/name_f] grandfather and all of his siblings have always gone by their middle names – I actually don’t know why. But it made it easier for my dad to be a junior, since he could just use his first name without much confusion.

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I loooooove names in the family and seeing how everyone in a family is named. How special that these people mean so much to each other that they use the names so often! Must be a close family :slight_smile:

In my family we have no Jrs or Srs, IIs, etc, but we have a few repeat names. We have three Maxes (go by [name_m]Max[/name_m], [name_m]Robby[/name_m] and Maxwell) and four Lucases (one goes by Luke).

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This is so interesting, thanks for sharing! In my culture, every child gets the middle name of the father, even girls, and it goes back forever. It’s not really a family thing, more of a cultural thing though.

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[name_f]Elisabeth[/name_f] (2) - great grandmother & great auntie
[name_m]Maximilian[/name_m] (3) - great grandfather, first cousin & first cousin once removed

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Thank you for sharing! I love looking at a family tree and seeing the connections.
On my mum’s side there a few honour names, all female; there were two generations in which 9 girls were born and 0 boys, so we are female heavy on this side anyway. We have the names [name_f]Alice[/name_f], [name_f]Josie[/name_f], [name_f]Margaret[/name_f] & [name_f]Clara[/name_f] which are firsts that were carried down as two subsequent firsts and two turned into middle names. From the POV of the parent who chose them, they honour a great grandmother and three sisters.

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Yes, I agree that going by the middle name makes things much less confusing! [name_m]Even[/name_m] going by variations of the same name (like [name_m]Mike[/name_m] and Michael) simplify it a lot

I did offer a compromise to my husband that I would go through with naming our son [name_f]Reese[/name_f] [name_m]Scott[/name_m] III if we called him [name_m]Scott[/name_m] and only saw it as a middle name. [name_f]My[/name_f] husband felt like [name_m]Scott[/name_m] would be weird for our baby to go by, so he decided he’d rather the name the baby outside the tradition than have him go by [name_m]Scott[/name_m] haha.
Speaking of going by [name_m]Scott[/name_m], wildly, apparently my MIL wanted to call their son/my husband [name_m]Scott[/name_m] instead f
Of his first name that’s the same as his dad’s, so that was the plan. Somehow, my FIL “missed” the memo and told everyone (while his wife was mostly incapacitated after a terrible labor) after he was born that he was going by [name_f]Reese[/name_f]. [name_f]My[/name_f] MIL told me they had talked about it while she was pregnant, and that was the plan, so my guess is he didn’t care to remember something that important, it he wanted him to share his name. Both are very questionable haha.