On Sun, 28 Oct 2012 15:10:53 +0000, Dr Nick
wrote:

Arcadian Rises writes:

On Oct 19, 8:20*am, "Don Phillipson" wrote:
wrote in message
...

In uk.rec.gardening R H Draney wrote:
I've come across that several times in my family tree. I think
one poor
family had three attempts to get a child called John, before
succeeding. *It seems - in these cases - either an attempt to
carry on
a family name, or perhaps a tribute to the child that had
died. . . .

I can imagine it being rather confusing for /everyone/, unless they
dismissed any reference to the first child from any future
conversation!
We can however approach this empirically. * When family histories
offer no evidence anyone found this confusing 150 years ago, it is
fair to say there was probably no such confusion.

True. They could refer to "the late John" and "the living John" Also,
"Jessica the old maid" or "The stuttering Jim", "the limping Howard",
"the dimwitted Eddie" to distinguish them from their namesakes in
those pre-PC ages.

All all the Welsh Jones-the-somethings.

I know someone who gave up investigating their family history when they
got to a wedding where both participants, all the witnesses, and the
presiding clergy were called Jones.

In Malta, some official forms used to, and perhaps still, provide
spaces for Surname, Forenames, and Nickname.

--
Mike.