My Mistaken Identity
I never thought of myself as having a common or popular name, April Earle, until someone reached out to me on Facebook accusing me of bullying her in high school. I have never bullied anyone in my life, well, maybe a younger sibling or two but - NO! When I asked the accuser where she went to high school she told me in Canada.
Um, je suis Américaine.
I had never even been to that part of Canada at the time which made me wonder how many April Earles are out there?
And then I got an email with a receipt for curtains purchased in Arizona or Colorado or Texas, I don't remember where exactly but from somewhere far away from where I live. At first I thought my credit card had been stolen. As it turns out, No, just another April Earle shopping who has an email address similar to mine thus I received her receipt.
I thought to myself that this must be how John Smith feels all the time but it has to be more shocking for me because, again, it must happen to John Smiths all the time.
I do have Smith ancestors. Who doesn't? But in general, I don't have relatives with very common or popular names.
According to the Social Security Administration (SSA)
Looking at the statistical data provided by the Social Security Administration (SSA) in relation to baby names (https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/), I see my mom's first name was ranked 16th in the decade in which she was born as was her mother's name, Marilyn, in the decade grandma was born. Grandpa Clarence came in 30th. Dad's first name and his parents were not as popular as those on my maternal line; Dad was 111th, Grandpa Edwin was 57th, Grandma Clare was 158th but not with her spelling. 158th was Claire. Clare does not even appear on the list when spelled the same way as grandma's first name. My name was ranked 34th in the 1970s. Sorry Sister Blythe, you do not make the list. Surprise, surprise. Not a popular name ever.
These statistics are interesting but genealogically, my family doesn't have popular names. Unlike that scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding in which the Greek father introduces all his nieces and nephews to the soon-to-be in-laws, (this is my niece Nikki, my nephew Nico, and my other niece Nicki, nephew Nico, and Diana), my family is not heavy into recycling names or naming our children after an elder. Traditionally, we don't even subscribe to traditional naming patterns.
Genealogical Statistics
Genealogically speaking, the most popular names in my family is Mary which is, according to the SSA, the most popular female name in the last 100 years. I had 2 out of 4 great grandmother named Mary. In total there are 135 Marys in my present Ancestry family tree comprised of 4002 people total. That's over 3% of my family tree.
The most popular male name in my family tree is, SURPRISE, John. I have 160 of them. That's just about 4% of my family tree. Surprisingly though, the SSA lists John as the 3rd most popular male name in the last 100 years. James and Robert out rank John. I thought for sure John would be #1.
More Mistaken Identities
Perhaps you have seen it on Ancestry as I have, someone linking your person's records to their person who happened to have the same name but it's not the same person. It doesn't necessarily mean the name was popular, though. This has happened with my grandpa, Clarence Gardner. Now again, Clarence only ranked 30th in popularity in the 1920s. It is not a totally "unheard" of name but not everyone has a Clarence among their kin. Gardner is also a fairly common surname though. Thus, I am certain Grandpa Clarence had contemporaries, unknown to him, who had the same exact name as he did; just like I have my Canadian bully.
This logic, however, eludes the Ancestry user who I have contacted multiple times stating that they have records for their uncle that are actually my grandpa's records and my grandpa is not their uncle. Even though the email is marked read, to date no response has been sent to me, and no changes have been made to their tree. However, if they really looked and read those records they would probably come to the conclusion that there was more than one Clarence Gardner born in the mid-1920s walking around the U.S.
Moral of the story, people, read your records. Just because they have the same name, doesn't mean it's the same person.
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