Plethora of same names

[macwil]

Wasn't sure where to put this.

My paternal grandparents WILSON/BERRY have the following relatives spread across the two lines :-
8 James Berry plus James Wilson Berry
7 John Berry plus 2 John Henry Berry and 2 John Thomas Berry
6 Alice Berry
5 Thomas Berry
4 Margaret Berry  plus 1 Maggie Berry and 1 Margaret Ellen Berry
4 Alice Wilson (at least these are in the same line)

All in a 50/60 year period for each name.
And people wonder why I permanently look puzzled.

[aghadowey]

That's really not that many. My mother-in-law had 4 first cousins all named after their grandfather, same first name and surname, no middle name. Known by nicknames but still not easy to sort out in some records.

[Ayashi]

And a partridge in a pear tree?

I've got one family on a parallel line that had four Williams and three Marys in the same bunch of children.

I don't have anything quite as bad as that, but all of my surnames are common so you inevitably end up with a few along the lines of John Smith in the same place. It's sad to find newspaper articles and such things and not know which one they are talking about! I also have a few that are the traditional John son of John son of John or John son of Joseph son of John son of Joseph type patterns...

[Sinann]

My mothers tells me there was great confusion at a funeral of her grandmother as there was eight women present all with the same first name and six of them had the same surname, we can add another if we count the deceased who they were all named after.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I have just been researching a family in the mid 1800. There were three sons who all married girls called Mary Ann, and one of their sisters was Mary Ann. Then most of them called a daughter Mary Ann as well. I wonder what they were all called in the family?

[JAKnighton]

I have one family who have lived in the same small village since at least 1600, who had lots of children with the same names, some very unusual. It's actually a lot of fun to untangle them all and find out who belongs to who. I consider it a family tree project all on it's own and I spend a lot of time on it even though my relation to them is relatively distant (4x great grandmother).

[Ayashi]

I've got a Mary Ann with a daughter Mary Ann. It wasn't until I saw the father's will that I saw the daughter referred to as Annie (she was in an asylum where she sadly died before he did). Her death certificate is even incorrectly written as Mary Annie. I suppose there are a few variations you might end up with, including names like Polly. An old friend of mine asked me to have a look at his ancestors and he told me his grandmother was Poll, short for Pauline, didn't know the surname. I had a look and said the only person I could find marrying a man of his grandfather's name was Mary Ann Mountford. He said "oh yeah, that's right." 

[3sillydogs]

One line of my family used William Henry or Henry William in each generation, so there were cousins, brothers, uncles, a few even had wives with the same names.  That line makes my brain hurt!!