Same-Named Siblings

[Magna Libero]

I share my first name with my father and my brother, but it is so neat that it really only should work as an accessory name imho. I'm not any troubled by it, only when people refer to me using it. I correct them by voicing my middle name.

That's what makes it a stupid thing to do.

It sounds a little weird. My father's first name is the same as his father. Instead of using the first name we call him by his middle name. Weirdly, I was surprised when I just heard about it recently that my father's first name was his first name and not his middle name. I don't even know the name of my father, he is so mysterious.

[Breadknife]

Well I think everyone should have a unique, phonetically spelled, non-comedic name so if I got my way, this wouldn't be an issue.

Population of the world: 7 thousand million (7 billion, in new modern short-measure that I detest)
Number of available phonemes: English is said to have (at least) 42 of these, which I'm going to grossly misinterpret as the average number available across all languages

Using strings of six phonemes (assuming you could seemlessly run every phoneme into every other without problems, or accidentally duplicating a different phoneme juncture in the process) you could get slightly less than 5.5 'billion' names. (Or slightly more than 5.6x10⁹ if you added all possible 1..5-phoneme name to the list as well.)

But a string of seven phonemes would give you around 230x10⁹ combinations (or 236..., inclusive of making available to register all the shorter combinations as well) which is probably more than enough possibilities to remove:

1. All awkward combinations/unusual-positioned phonemes (e.g. strings of /ch/, or perhaps non-terminating /ng/ phonemes followed by anything that isn't a minor breath space)
2. All ambiguous/confusable combinations (and perhaps conflate /l/ and /r/ for international use, or prevent any confusing use of an otherwise similar name but with such a switch)
3. All combinations that are considered funny/rude/confusing (e.g. "/Mai/Nei/Bɜr/"=>"My neighbour" or => "/Not/an/eim" "Not a name")
4. All combinations that have already arisen prior to The Great Name Reform (perhaps more than once, e.g. /Mai/Kəl/dʒɑːk/sʌn/)

...and still cover all extant humans, and a few more generations yet, before we need to start looking at 8-phoneme names.

Perfectly doable, I'm sure!!!

(Ignore any bad/misused IPA, I started with a more 'latin' pseudo-/fon/eem/ notation, then realised my own accent and assumptions would be prominent. This way, there's less accent and thus mostly only my assumptions. )

[New North Aqmuland]

I know a couple of identical twins with the same name, spelled the same way, but pronounced different.

I do too actually. It's one letter, I guess, so not exactly the same, but still... Really?

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

That's what makes it a stupid thing to do.

I'd hate my first name all by itself anyway.

Furthermore, my middle name alone would lack personality, I don't know.

Meh, Iberian surnames match best with Iberian double given names.

Also, only my bro was baptized after my father and by extension me. I was named after an ex-student of my mother (my dad refused her first choice because the nickname for it is mocking; they are quite common in Lusophone countries, "tonho" for Antônio and "mané" for Manuel both mean fool/silly).

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

Mai/Kəl/dʒɑːk/sʌn

Who the hell has the FAR vowel (in value and length) for the FAT sound? Only an e.g. terribly Spanish-influenced accent would be like this (the Japanese would still distinguish them through length).

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

It's not too odd. My family had two great, great uncles (brothers) with the same name. Catholics. Their middle names are their godfather's names, given upon confirmation.

Weird. In Brazil you only can change your name if you get a sex change, or you can prove in a Court you are prone to mockery due to it, initiating a judicial battle by yourself when you are already a legal adult.

[Breadknife]

But poor Georgetta Foreman.

You mean the daughter of George Foreman with the five (half-)brothers called George?

On the other hand, I think Georgetta is at least a relatively normal and long-standing 'girlified' name (although I've personally only known "Georgette"s). While I know she's not the only one out there, I more pity Nigella Lawson. I mean "Nigel" has had an unflattering conotation for boys, from at least the '60s (although how much of the '80s reputation was from the character in The Young One's (and actor behind him), I don't know), so I'm not sure whether her father, Nigel, was thinking ahead back in 1960 itself... Still, it means that "Nigella" didn't have to do much to get into that list of celebrities commnly known only by their first name. Unlike Sting or Bono or Elton she didn't even have to change her name (from Gordon or Paul or Reg) before getting recognised as the primae-facae example of her 'brand' (ditto Madonna), or end up having their original name at least partially mangled/familiarised (Maggie, 'Dubya').

[Breadknife]

Mai/Kəl/dʒɑːk/sʌn

Who the hell has the FAR vowel (in value and length) for the FAT sound? Only an e.g. terribly Spanish-influenced accent would be like this (the Japanese would still distinguish them through length).

The ɑː, you mean? May be a remnant (or over-compensation?) of my own accent, that. What I mean is about as long as the sound in "father" (ɑː, according to this guide, which also gives "PALM" as a reference), longer than "bat"/"FAT" (æ-cum-a, apparently, but I'd say definitely the ('unbent') 'a' for me), but definitely shorter than "car"/"FAR" (ɑr).

I'm not as comfortable with IPA as I ought to be, probably given my regional dialect being somewhat distinct even from RP.

Hence my smallfonted disclaimer. (Also hence why I disagree about "English spelling reform to be phonetic" suggestions, wheneve they turn up on these forums. Too many disagreements about the phoneticism, even.)

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

-snip-

In Brazil we know him as roughly "Mikoa Jecksawn" (the RP 'oa' is closest to Portuguese [ew] as in "eu", 'I/me'), so the thought of someone pronouncing it "Jalkson" gave me chills.

EDIT: Some people use the American 'oa' (or [ow], as in "sou", 'I am'), especially those knowledgeable in English (schwa+ell -> most closely equivalent to 'oa' sound, most often, due to the backing effects the velarized ell has on the preceding schwa), but it sounds terribly similar to 'Maycon/Maicon', this one our local bastardization of 'Malcolm'.

[Nazi Flower Power]

If you give them different middle names and use the middle names, it's not a big deal. Not something I personally would do, but it's not my business if other people want to.

George #1, George #2, etc. is weird and might have unwanted effects on the kids' sense of self.

[Breadknife]

-snip-

In Brazil we know him as roughly "Mikoa Jecksawn" (the RP 'oa' is closest to Portuguese [ew] as in "eu", 'I/me'), so the thought of someone pronouncing it "Jalkson" gave me chills.

"Palm" (to me) is like a shortened version of "Parm" (as in "parmasan", or at least how I pronounce parmasan, entering another viscious circle of needing to convey pronunciation), with no actual 'l'-sound in it. Just not as short as the name "Pam". Does "Jak-sun" make much sense to you? Increase the length of the 'a' by a smidgen, and we're probably close enough to the point where I am, in length if not tone.

(BTW, using "Jeck" puts me in mind of a stereotypical (white) South African/"Særth Æfrikkin" accent. )

Also "Malcolm" gets the first 'l' pronounced, but not the second, as in "Malk-Um". Unless I'm attempting a paradoic 'Irish-Scot' accent, perhaps, with echoes of the Northern Irish voicing of the word "Film" as "Fill-um". "Malk", I think, should be understandable, as long as you know it definitely does not rhyme with "Chalk" (which in turn would be "Chork", also de-'El'ified), but it seems that if I give any actual IPA I'd likely be wrong in some way again so I'm not bothering in this post.

It sounds like your conversion of the letter "L" has a relationship with the traditional London pronunciation. e.g. "Milk" having a 'reverse-L' in it, perhaps to sound more like "Miyuk" (but not at all exactly).

But we digress..!