Of course, you know that when a man names one of his sons after himself, the kid gets the full name, first, middle and last and a “Jr.” is attached.
He lives thereafter in his father’s shadow and strives to make his own identity. Not easy when you’re an “appendage” (strong word but I mean it) of your father, not your own individualist self.
I remember going to a minor league baseball game and there on one team was a player named Mickey Mantle, Jr. He tried and tried but he could not be the player that his father was; the team eventually dropped him off their roster. Despite—and maybe cause of—that name, he failed. Must be tough growing up under those circumstances.
If I had been given the name of my father I would have changed it at 18 or 21, whatever is the legal age requirement.
Unless you are Barack Obama and you are named Barack H. Obama II.
People think the II is just a fancy way of indicating Jr. It's not. Maybe Obama's parents (whoever they were) thought II sounded more distinguished than Jr. They obviously were misinformed.
The II is reserved for naming a child after someone who is not the father. It was useful when many of an extended family lived in one house. A child might be named after a grandfather or an uncle and the II was appended to his name to identify the younger person.
I’ve never cared for Jr. names. Every kid deserves his “own” name. The middle name is for honoring a parent/grandparent/family connection.
I completely agree with that, and have seen it play out in real life.
When my baby sister's first boy was on the way, she set her mind on honoring her husband by making baby a Junior. This, despite the fact that she has two uncles and a nephew with the same first name. Today, my family has five Michaels.
Crazy, huh?
My family took a name all the way to four generations before my sister-in-law put her foot down when their son was born and named him something with no family names. It was crazy- my dad and granddad had ranches in the same area and the banks and what not stayed confused. It did make it easier for me to do the genealogy for my dad’s tree. I found out the unusual first name was scattered throughout the family and went back to an ancestor that died in the Civil War. I think it must have started out as a way to honor him and then went too far.