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{{trope}}
==''[[Discworld]]'' ==
* A rather amusing subversion because of the irony, in
** And then there's Ridcully, High Priest of Blind Io. It doesn't count, though, because he is Archchancellor Ridcully's brother.▼
*** In addition to the above, in ''[[
** Not to mention the multiple Williams in the books. We have [[
== ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' ==
* The ''
** In the same book, two central characters (Bartemius Crouch Senior and Junior) have the same name, but one of them is using an alias, {{spoiler|causing the Marauder's Map to mislead Harry}}. [[Justified Trope]] because, as with Voldemort, they're a father and son.▼
== Other works ==
* Averted rather confusingly by [[NUMA Series|Clive Cussler]] in his recent books, which have 2 characters named Dirk Pitt, with fairly similar personalities, both on an adventure at the same time, and without any nicknames to tell them apart. It's possible to get half way through a chapter before finding out which character you're reading about.
* Andrey Kurkov's ''[[Death And The Penguin]]'' features two characters named Misha. One is the eponymous penguin. The other is a person, usually referred to as "Misha-non-penguin".
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* [[P. G. Wodehouse|PG Wodehouse]] was inclined to change characters' names to enforce the limit. [[Psmith|Rupert Psmith]] became Ronald Psmith when in the same book as [[Blandings Castle|Rupert Baxter]], and the valet Brinkley was renamed Bingley when he was needed in a story set at Brinkley Court.
* Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeyevich Griboyedov and Aleksandr Sergeyevich the manservant of the latter in ''[[The Death of the Vazir Mukhtar]]''. But these are [[Historical Domain Character|historical people]].
* [[William Faulkner]]'s ''[[The Sound and
** The Sartoris family, important players in many of Faulkner's other works, tear this trope to shreds. There's John Sartoris, who had a son named Bayard Sartoris, who had a son named John Sartoris, who had a son named Bayard Sartoris... yeah. Bring a flowchart.
* ''[[I, Claudius]]'' has so many characters with the same or very similar names that the books contain a ''family tree'' to help readers work out who's who. This is because real life Romans really hated to be imaginative with names. They tended just to reuse whatever was already in the family, and to distinguish successive generations by nicknames. And that was with sons—daughters were lucky if they've got names ''at all''. In fact, they just had two dozen different first names for males, and all women in the Claudius family were named Claudia.
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* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' Sam names his first three sons Frodo, Merry and Pippin respectively. He also had a son named Bilbo.
** Bill the pony, whom the hobbits purchased from Bill Ferny. Apparently Sam wasn't good at coming up with creative names.
** There might also have been two Glorfindels, [https://web.archive.org/web/20160306025703/http://www.glyphweb.com/
** From Tolkien's universe: Two Hador, three Ecthelion, three Beren, two Boromir, two Denethor, ''six'' Durin, and two or three Barahir.
*** The Dwarves believe each Durin is a reincarnation of the ''original'' Durin, one of the first six Dwarves, so that naming convention makes sense. It also means there should be five other Dwarf leaders somewhere with a similar history.
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* In [[Robert Silverberg]]'s ''The Alien Years,'' a rugged retired colonel named Anson founds a self-sustaining community of rugged survivors on his ranch near LA. Many of his descendants are named Anson, making it hard to tell them apart. (It doesn't help that they all have the same role in their community, and all act the same.)
* A series of detective stories set in Wales, written by Rhys Bowen, plays on the supposed tendency of the Welsh to have many people with the same name and deal with it by attaching profession-based nicknames. The hero, Constable Evans, is "Evans the Law"; the gas-station owner is "Evans the Pump." Women go by the ''first'' name and a nickname: Constable Evans' schoolteacher ladyfriend is "Bronwen the Book." This practice may be [[Truth in Television]].
▲* The ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' books mostly follow the trope, but an exception is that Tom Marvolo Riddle shares most of his name with his father (Tom Riddle) and Tom the barman at the Leaky Cauldron. When Dumbledore tells him he should have no trouble remembering the barman's name because it's the same as his, he gets angry because he doesn't like having such a common name.
▲** ''Harry Potter'' also demonstrates the reason for this trope when in ''Order of the Phoenix'', Dudley beats up a ten-year-old named "Mark Evans". Fans speculated wildly about how he was related to Lily (Evans) Potter and whether he would turn up at Hogwarts next book. After enough fans asked, JKR reluctantly admitted the character was of no significance whatsoever, she just accidentally used the same common surname twice in one book.
▲*** It's not impossible for Mark Evans to be a distant cousin of Lily, different branches of a family can drift apart. Also, the Evans seemed to be Mugglish, Lily's people may just have had one or two magical members compared to the rest.
▲** In addition, there are two minor characters named Augustus (a Death Eater and a junior Healer). Plus a number of occasions, especially in ''Deathly Hallows'', of children being named after other characters, both alive and [[Dead Guy, Junior|dead]].
▲** Voldemort being named after his father caused some readers to be confused by the description of the murder of Voldemort's father and paternal grandparents in ''Goblet of Fire''. The film producers were also apparently confused; an early promotional picture of the Riddles' gravestone gave the husband's full name as Tom Marvolo Riddle, which was Voldemort's name, not his father's.
▲** In the same book, two central characters (Bartemius Crouch Senior and Junior) have the same name, but one of them is using an alias, {{spoiler|causing the Marauder's Map to mislead Harry}}. [[Justified Trope]] because, as with Voldemort, they're a father and son.
▲** There are also two minor characters named Ernie—one drives the Knight Bus, the other is a Hufflepuff in Harry's year. There's also Hepzibah Smith, one of Riddle's victims who boasts of being directly descended from Helga Hufflepuff, and Zacharias Smith, an arrogant Hufflepuff himself. Some fans have speculated that they're related in some way.
▲** There's also Frank Bryce (gardener of the Riddle Family in ''Goblet of Fire'') and Frank Longbottom, Neville's father. To drive it even further the Norwegian translation gives George Weasley the name "Frank Wiltersen."
▲** Apparently the name [[Meaningful Name|Cassandra]] is a common one for Seers; we hear of Sybill Trelawney's great great grandmother Cassandra Trelawney as well as the author of ''Unfogging the Future'', Cassandra Vablatsky.
▲** Of course, we have the Potter family itself. Harry's parents are named James and Lily Potter. Harry names his oldest son and his only daughter after his parents; making their names....James and Lily Potter!!
▲** Then there's the Black Family, who have a penchant for naming their children after stars, resulting in 3 known Sirius Blacks, Harry's Godfather, Sirus Black III, that Sirius' Great Grandfather, Sirius II, and Sirius II's Uncle Sirius I.
▲* A rather amusing subversion because of the irony, in the [[Discworld]] book ''[[Discworld/The Last Continent|The Last Continent]]'': "Rincewind!" "Yes?" "No, no, I mean the Archchancellor." "But... I'm named Rincewind." "There's a coincidence. So am I." They eventually decide they must be related simply because they share such an uncommon name. Made even more interesting when Archchancellor Ridcully showed up, although each Archchancellor made sure to refer to the other with a lower-case "a" in "archchancellor." Doing nothing to abate the confusion.
▲** And then there's Ridcully, High Priest of Blind Io. It doesn't count, though, because he is Archchancellor Ridcully's brother.
▲*** In addition to the above, in ''[[Discworld/Eric|Eric]]'', Rincewind meets {{spoiler|Lavaeolus}}, whose name translates to "Rinser of winds".
▲** ''[[Discworld/Unseen Academicals|Unseen Academicals]]'' introduces us to "Bledlow Nobbs" who is so insulted by being thought to be related to Nobby Nobbs that the second half of the book calls him "Bledlow Nobbs (No Relation)".
▲** In ''[[Discworld/Maskerade|Maskerade]]'' there's one character called Henry Slugg and another called Henry Lawsy. {{spoiler|However, it turns out that Slugg is Lawsy's father, and Lawsy was named after him.}}
▲** Not to mention the multiple Williams in the books. We have [[Discworld/The Truth|William de Worde]], [[Discworld/The Wee Free Men|William the Gonagle]], [[Discworld/Monstrous Regiment|a dead William in Borogravia, and his son William]], [[Discworld/Maskerade|a Will in the opera house]], and probably more.
▲** [[Fan Nickname|Pterry]] also plays with the nicknames that are given to characters of the same name:
▲*** In ''[[Discworld/Hogfather|Hogfather]]'', one of the thugs hired by Mr. Teatime is called ''Medium Dave'' because Ankh-Morpork's underworld already had Big Dave, Fat Dave, Mad Dave, Wee Davey and Lanky Dai.
▲*** In ''[[Discworld/The Wee Free Men|The Wee Free Men]]'' we learn that there are so many Feegles that are called Jock that the [[Dreadful Musician|Gonnagle in training]]'s name is "Not-As-Big-As-Medium-Sized-Jock-But-Bigger-Than-Wee-Jock Jock". And he insists on the full name every time, because "Not-As-Big-As-Medium-Sized-Jock-But-Bigger-Than-Wee-Jock-Jock" is a time-honored name for the Pictsies.
▲** Averting this trope ''en masse'' is a big part of the [[The Igor|Igor tribe]]'s identity.
* A joke version shows up in ''[[The Dresden Files]]''. When Harry's recovering from his injuries in the care of Michael's family, one of his kids calls Harry "Bill" because "we've already got a Harry" (Michael's youngest, named, in fact, after Harry).
** Even funnier when you consider that there's already a "Billy," although the girl probably didn't know that.
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* Lampshaded in ''Who?'' by Algis Budrys, when Lucas Martino goes off to live with his uncle Lucas Maggiore. His uncle immediately says, "Lucas and Lucas---that's too many Lucases in one store." Lucas Martino is promptly nicknamed Tedeschino, but the narration continues to use his original name.
* Steven Pinker discusses names in a chapter of ''The Stuff Of Thought''. He opens the chapter talking about the commonness of his own name, joking about the prominence of smart successful people named Steve - Stephen Hawking, Stephen J. Gould, Stephen King, Steven Rose, Steve Jobs, the two authors of ''Freakonomics'', and even includes a cartoon someone drew of a guy looking at a previous Pinker book and buying it deciding "If he's called Steve, he must know what he's talking about!" as he is surrounded by a bookshelf full of many of the aforementioned Steve authors.
▲* In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]:
▲** The last name of the Rebel pilot in ''[[Star Wars]] Episode IV - [[A New Hope]]'', the one who was force-garroted by Vader, was Antilles. [[X Wing Series|Wedge]], a fighter pilot [[Ascended Extra|beloved by the EU]], also has the last name Antilles, and isn't related - in one book he meets his new quartermaster, a droid who was on the Tantive IV, who tells him that it's pleased to serve under another Antilles and hopes things will end better this time, to Wedge's discomfort. It's mentioned that this is a common last name - in the comics, a short-lived Jedi character who is of the philosophy that Jedi should own nothing, not even their names, goes by Jon Antilles, and it's mentioned that no one thinks that's what he was born as.
▲** In Episode I, the senator from Alderaan is Bail Antilles, and his successor, better known as Leia's adoptive father, is Bail Organa.
▲** Mace Towani from ''[[Caravan of Courage]]'' and Mace Windu from the prequels.
▲** Anakin Skywalker and Anakin Solo. Although the latter is named directly for the former, his grandfather.
▲** "Mala" or "Malla" is the short form of Chewbacca's wife's name, the name of Wedge's doomed girlfriend from just before he joined the Rebel Alliance, and the name of a bounty hunter who [[Arabian Nights Gambit|amused the Emperor]] with her audacity.
* An interesting use of this trope comes from Cory Doctorow's novel ''Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town'', in which the main character and his siblings each have a unique starting letter, but may be referred to by ''any name starting with that letter''. All other characters have unique and consistent names, none of which share starting letters with the siblings. It works surprisingly well, and you may not even notice the oddity until halfway through the book.
* [[Agatha Christie]]'s
* Played with in ''[[Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency]]'', when Gordon talks to his sister Susan's answering machine. Gordon's secretary is also named Susan, and he keeps making asides to clarify which Susan he's referring to.
* A minor example shows up in ''[[Great Expectations]]''. There is Georgiana, as in Pip's mother who he calls "Also Georgiana" early on, and a different Georgiana in the Pocket family. Of course, neither of them have much of an important role, so it's easily overlooked.
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* In the [[Anne of Green Gables]] series by L.M. Montgomery, there are three characters with the name "Jim" or some variant of it: Captain Jim, Anne's son Jem, and the war baby Jims. Jem is named after Captain Jim, so that doesn't really count, but Jims is no relation to either.
** An even bigger example from L. M. Montgomery's books comes from ''The Story Girl'' and ''The Golden Road'', in which the main character and one of her friends are both called Sara. There is no confusion between the two, as the former is usually known as "The Story Girl" by her peers, and the latter is usually called by her full name, i.e. Sara Ray.
* ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
** On the other manipulatory appendage, every race in the HHGG universe has a drink called "ginandtonic" (however the name happens to be spelled on any given world).
* ''[[The Hunger Games|Mockingjay]]'' by Suzanne Collins has an unusual exception, a pair of sisters named Leeg. Katniss refers to them as Leeg 1 and Leeg 2 to differentiate, and there is never an instance of name confusion.
* In ''The Queen's Own Fool'' there are five Marys: the titular [[Mary Queen of Scots]] and her four maids-in-waiting. The narrator keeps track of them in her mind by calling them Pious Mary, Pretty Mary, Regal Mary and Jolly Mary.
* [[P. G. Wodehouse]] reused first names quite a bit within his [[The Verse|'verse]].
* In the short story ''[[Monster Hunter International|Bubba Shackleford's Professional Monster Killers]]'' where one of Shackleford's crew is affectionately known as "Mexican George" due to them already having a George when he joined, but the line "nobody in Alabama would call him Whore Hay" implies his name is actually "Jorge", and the original George doesn't even show up in person anyways.
{{tropesubpagefooter}}
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