Repetitive Name: Difference between revisions

=== People - Patronymics and similar names ===

* Guy Fawkes (he of Gunpowder Plot fame) used "John Johnson" as an alias. It wasn't very effective.

* Aharon Aharonson, botanist and [[World War I]] spy.

* Erik Erikson, the psychologist famous for coining the term "identity crisis", was born with the name Erik Salomonson. However, his father was only so in the legal sense, as his mother (also Jewish) had an extramarital affair with a Danish man (possibly) named Erik. Hence...

** Not to be confused with conservative political commentator Erick Erickson.

* Comic artist and ''[[Venture Brothers]]'' storyboarder Stephen DeStefano.

* The word "ben" is Hebrew for son, so the name Benson translates into "son son".

** Before anyone says, "That's funny, but Benson is an ''English'' name," Benson means "Ben's Son", i.e. "Son of Benjamin". Benjamin is of course Hebrew for "Son of my right hand" (no, not like that, get your mind out of the gutter), from "ben" (son) and "yamin" (right). So, by an amusing accident, English isolated the part of the name that means "son" as the nickname for Benjamin...and thus "Benson" is, in a round about way, "Son-son" (son of son).

* Benjamin Netanyahu's late brother was named Yonatan Netanyahu. Considering that "Yonatan" is a contraction of "Yehonatan" and "Netanyahu" is a reversal of the same name with a slightly different transliteration, his name was basically Jonathan Nathanjo—or Jo''nathan Nathan''iel.

* This was an old stereotype of people from the Scandinavian countries (where patronymic surnames are common), especially when they emigrated to America. This inspired the rhyme "Yon Yonson" (John Johnson).

* Alexander Alexandrov, writer of the [[Crowning Music of Awesome|Hymn of the Soviet Union]].

* Scandinavian languages has rather few "usable" first names for men, so people with names like "Sven Svensson" (Swedish), "Lars Larsen" (Danish), "Halvor Halvorsen" (Norwegian) or "Sigurbjorn Sigurbjornsson" (Icelandic) are not too uncommon.

* Author, baron, freiherr, politician etc. [[wikipedia:Yrjö Koskinen|Yrjö Yrjö-Koskinen]]

* American country singer (of Swedish descent) Kris Kristofferson.

* The Egyptian American stand-up comic/actor [[Ahmed Ahmed]].

** On a more general note: The extensive use of [[patronymic]]s makes something like this possible—albeit uncommon—in Egypt, and in Arabic-speaking countries in general. It's very normal for a guy to name his first son after his own father (the son's grandfather), and so on. So having a guy named "Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed..." unto several generations is not only common, it's practically a national joke in some countries (Egypt chief among them) that if the Arabic system of nomenclature didn't allow you to pick an arbitrary ''nth'' ancestor as your last name (e.g. the random Ibrahim tossed in because you aren't the first son of the first son ''ad infinitum'') or use an ancestral nickname keeps, practically everyone would have a Repetitive Name and the government would have to ban them.

*** For this trope in action, look no further than the kings of Morocco and Jordan. The current{{when}} king of Morocco is Muhammad VI, son of Hassan II, son of Muhammad V, and his son will be (barring unforeseen unpleasantness) Hassan III. In Jordan, the current king is Abdullah II, son of Hussein, and his son will be Hussein II barring unforeseen unpleasantness.

=== People - Not Patronymics ===

* The famous 17th century astronomer [[wikipedia:Galileo|Galileo Galilei]]. This was, in fact, fairly popular in Italy in the past, especially during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Any Italian history book is a trove of repetitive names, though none quite as famous as Galileo.

* Sporty siblings Gary, Phil (football) and Tracy (netball) Neville's father was a rugby player named Neville Neville. (Sing it to the tune of [[David Bowie]]'s "Rebel Rebel".)

* RFK assassin Sirhan B. Sirhan.

* "My Morning Jacket" lead singer Jim James. (A stage name, but still a name.)

* There is an area in Arizona known as Table Mesa.

* Chris Christie, the current{{when}} governor of New Jersey.

* Courtney Taylor-Taylor of [[The Dandy Warhols]], though it's a stage name, and his birth name is simply Courtney Taylor. According to him, it started as an in-joke: He had called a friend, and someone else picked up, so he had them write down a message - because he had to repeat his last name to the person on the other end, they wrote his name down as "Courtney Taylor-Taylor".

* Similarly, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, former [[Jethro Tull]] bassist. His actual name was Jeffrey Hammond, yet he added the second "Hammond" after his mother's maiden name.

=== Not People ===

* In scientific circles, this is known as a ''tautonym'' when it applies to taxonomic classifications, where the genus and species of an animal have the same name. For example, ''Rattus rattus'' is the rat, ''Bison bison'' is the bison, while ''Puffinus puffinus'' is... the Manx Shearwater. [[Quite Interesting|Minus ten points if you said Puffin]].

** [[wikipedia:List of tautonyms|Wikipedia has an incomplete -but not small- list of tautonyms.]]

** One that deserves special mention is the Western Lowland Gorilla - ''Gorilla gorilla gorilla''!

** There are also ''Classic kurashikku'' examples:

*** ''Diceros bicornis'', the rhinoceros, is "two horns" in both Greek and Latin.

*** ''Xiphias gladius'', the swordfish, is "sword" in both Greek and Latin.

*** ''Ursus arctos'', the brown bear, is "bear" in, yes, Latin and Greek. However the Latin name comes first in this case, whereas the Greek name comes first in the other two.

* Welsh band "The Automatic" are known as The Automatic Automatic in America due to a pre-existing act by the name of Automatic. American fans of the Welsh band commonly refer to them by their original name.

* New York, New York. "The city so nice they named it twice."

* Loch Lochy

* Mansa Musa, 14th century emperor of Ghana and Mali.

* The [[wikipedia:Wave (audience)|Mexican wave]] (as often seen in sport stadions) is called ''[[Gratuitous Spanish|La Ola]]'' (Spanish for ''The Wave'') by the Germans. Often you can hear German people talk about "die ''La Ola''-Welle" - "The ''The Wave''-wave"!

* In a similar vein, the La Brea Tar Pits. "La" = "The" and "Brea" = "Tar". The The Tar Tar Pits.

* "Sahara" translates to "Desert," so people unwittingly refer to the Sahara as "the Desert Desert."

* This can happen with foreign foods that are amended with the native name for the food, such as "shrimp scampi."

* In baseball, the Philadelphia Phillies land this twice. Not just because of their current name, but also because in 1883 they replaced (and took all their players and staff from) the [[Meaningful Rename|Worcester Worcesters]].