The Dangers of Reusing a Family Name
Parents, beware of naming your children after yourself. You may have to make an extremely awkward phone call someday.
I’m Ron Stauffer. My dad is Ron Stauffer. My grandpa is Ron Stauffer.
I’m the third Ron Stauffer in a row. This mostly boring but occasionally annoying fact makes my life complicated in ways that people who aren’t named after another living person in their same family can’t understand.
My grandpa’s name at birth was simply “Ronald Stauffer,” with no middle name. This also meant he didn’t have a full set of initials when he joined the U.S. Air Force, so in typical military fashion, they inserted their own awkward acronym into his name, referring to him on official paperwork as “Ronald N.M.I. Stauffer.” (N.M.I. meaning “no middle initial.”)
Horrified, he marched down to the nearby courthouse and legally changed his name. Taking his mother’s maiden name as his middle name, he then became “Ronald Reller Stauffer.”
My dad’s full name is Ronald Duane Stauffer. As far as I know, there isn’t any particular history behind the “Duane” part of his name; my grandparents just liked it.
My name is Ronald Paul O’Ronald Stauffer. I’ve written in the past about what that means and the origin story behind the Irish and German mishmash, but that’s a subject for another time.
The bottom line is: with all these variations in our names, I am not, technically, “Ronald Stauffer, III.” And that’s okay with me. I don’t ever want to have to write or say “the third” when using my name. This also means I can’t technically use the nickname “Trey,” as some men who are “the Third” do.
That is also okay with me: if anybody ever called me “Trey,” I would punch them in the face.
Growing up, sometimes people in my family would jokingly call me “Junior Junior” since my dad is Ron Junior, which makes me the “junior” of Ron Junior. Which, if you think about it, makes him Ron Junior (Senior), so then I became Ron Junior, Jr.
Confused yet? Me too.
Most of the time, though, when I was younger, people would just call me “Ronny.” I never liked being called Ronny, and I still don’t… but I get it: what else do you call a little boy named after his father?
When I was around 12 years old, I went through a phase that lasted for precisely one week, where I told people to just call me “Paul” instead of “Ronny.” This worked for a few days until my older sister ruined everything. Upon hearing people refer to me as Paul, she scowled and began correcting everyone.
“His name isn’t Paul! It’s Ronny! Paul is his middle name! Ronny, why are you telling people to call you Paul?!”
In embarrassment, I retreated and never asked anyone to call me Paul ever again.
But even going by “Ronny” came with problems: extended family members in Pennsylvania still referred to my dad as “Ronny” long after I was born and even into my teens. Because he went by “Ronny” when he was little and, in their minds, he was still that very same little boy he was in the 1960s.
That’s all part of the challenge: it’s confusing when you have the same name as one living person, let alone two.
I’ve always felt that it’s a mixed blessing to be named after someone else in your family.
I get the whole “we’re passing down a family legacy through multiple generations” thing. I understand that it honors those who came before you and all that. I’m okay with that.
As a man, it’s good to come from a family where the men who came before you are worthy of being remembered: men who actually have a legacy worth preserving.
Some families don’t have that, and I don’t take that lightly.
Also, there are some more trivial reasons I benefitted from having my dad’s name. In a few cases, I was able to bend the rules of society a bit to get what I wanted.
At one point in time, my dad and I worked for the same company (our family business), and while this made phone calls exceptionally confusing—(“Hi, I’d like to speak with Ron Stauffer, please. Is he there?”)—it also made some tasks much easier.
I could use any of his credit cards without any issues, even when people asked to see my identification. (Yes, I had his permission).
I could sign for him whenever needed. (“Are you Ron Stauffer?” “Yes.” “Please sign here.”)
I could call banks or other institutions and talk to them freely about all kinds of businessy things and as long as I had his social security number (which he gave me). This allowed me to get a lot of trivial tasks done, saving the Elder Ron Stauffer lots of time.
I could make decisions on his behalf. (“Yes, this is Ron Stauffer. I authorize the $1,315 charge to replace the transmission on my truck.”)
It was like having a weird kind of not-exactly-legal-but-just-as-effective power of attorney for my dad. That was nice.
It was also nice that when family members mailed me a check for my birthday while I was growing up, I could just give it to my dad, and he could pay me for it without any hassle. The banks never looked at him funny when “Ron Stauffer” cashed a $15 made out to “Ronny Stauffer.” That’s a very normal thing to do.
(Note: this was not the case in my own family: when my oldest daughter would get small checks as a gift when she was very young, we knew that banks wouldn’t find it plausible to say “Aja” was just a nickname for “Rachel,” my wife.)
But having the same name as my dad—who was still a living, active, working man—also came with expectations, and that could be negative.
Sometimes, people who actually knew my dad would act strange when they met me.
“Oh, you’re Ron’s son? AND YOUR NAME IS RON, TOO?!”
“Your dad and I used to work together. He’s an amazing man.”
“I know your dad. I love your dad.”
Men and women would be thrilled to meet the young man named Ron Stauffer, who was the son of the man Ron Stauffer they were already thrilled to know.
So, in addition to wanting to make my long-dead German and Irish ancestors proud of me, I also had to try to make my still-very-much-alive American dad proud of me as well.
I’m his namesake, for Pete’s—err, for Ron’s sake—so whatever I did in my life reflected on him, for good or for ill. This brought a TON of pressure I never asked for or wanted.
In addition to this, I also felt another, stranger, hidden kind of pressure that a lot of people can’t understand: because I’m named after my dad, I get compared to him a lot. Like, A LOT, a lot.
People notice the big and little things that I do—and don’t—have in common with him, and they comment on it regularly.
People who know my dad and who meet me sometimes say, “Wow, you are just like your dad.”
Or, sometimes, conversely, they’ll say, “Wow, you… really aren’t like your dad at all.”
I don’t know what to do with these statements.
I’m just myself.
That’s all I know. I don’t know if I’m just like my dad or not just like my dad, and I don’t really care. Actually, that’s not true: I really care. Far too much: I wish I didn’t care so much. Not because I don’t care about him, but because I’m a different person.
Yet, the older I get, the disparities and similarities between my dad and me seem to become more extreme, and noticeable.
Recently, I was talking to one of my dad’s brothers (in other words, one of my uncles). I was just doing my thing, explaining something in a very normal discussion about… I can’t even remember what we were talking about.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, the way I gestured or rolled my eyes or something made him absolutely stop me cold.
“OH MY GOD!” he shouted, cutting me off mid-sentence.
Panicking, I asked him: “What? What’s wrong?! What?”
“You looked JUST like your old man when you said that just now…” he responded.
This annoyed me greatly. I didn’t even know how to respond. As I tried to reduce my heartbeat back down to a normal pace, I asked something like: “Are you saying that’s a bad thing?”
“No, no,” he was quick to assure me. “Of course not. I love my brother, Ron. It’s just… the resemblance is uncanny, that’s all. I guessed I didn’t notice it until just now. It just… surprised me.”
Well, what am I supposed to do with that?
Of course, I resemble him. HE’S MY DAD.
I’m literally his son. I literally have his same name.
I’m trying to come to terms with all of this. I know that what people call me, how they perceive me, and whether they think I’m like my dad, my grandpa, or anyone else for that matter, is becoming less relevant over time.
The older I get, the less I care (or try to care). But this is all part of why I chose not to name my own son Ron Stauffer.
That’s right: get a good look at me, folks—this fine specimen is the very last of the Ron Stauffers unless someone who’s not my son starts the whole process all over again. (Please, nobody do this.)
Of all the pros and cons of having the same name as my dad (and his dad), there was one truly bizarre incident that happened just a year or two ago that I absolutely never saw coming and tops all the rest. This one, I will never forget.
I was minding my own business one day when my dad called me out of the blue, and began an incredibly strange line of very cryptic questions.
Dad: “Hey Ron, it’s Dad.”
Me: “Hi, Dad. How’s it going?”
Dad: “Great. Ummm, actually, I don’t exactly know how to ask this, but… did you recently place an order online from a particular kind of store?”
Me: “Ummm, what?”
Dad: “Were you expecting a large box of… items from a very specific kind of website that sells items of a… private nature?”
Me: “What? A large box? You’re asking if I am expecting a shipment from a… private kind of company? Huh?”
Dad: “Yes.”
Me: “No, I don’t… think so. Should I be?”
By now, I’m having a hard time trying to comprehend what on earth my dad is trying to ask me. What is this call about? What does he want from me? Is this a joke or a prank?
Dad: “Well, see, here’s the thing. We just got a package addressed to “Ron Stauffer,” but I wasn’t expecting anything, and it’s clearly not for me.”
Me: “Okay, did you see who the sender is?”
Dad: “Yes, that’s just the thing. The sender is… an adult website.”
Me: “Whoa, adult? You mean ‘adult’ as in a sexual nature?”
Dad: “Yes, I guess what I’m trying to say is: there’s a paper that says ‘Ron Stauffer, thank you for your order,’ and a box full of… sex toys. Did you order a bunch of sex toys?”
Me: (Aghast) “What?!”
Dad: “Yeah, there’s a bottle with a label on it that says ‘Stay Hard All Night Penis Spray.’ Did you maybe order ‘Stay Hard All Night Penis Spray’ and handcuffs and ‘cock rings’ and somehow accidentally give them our address during checkout?”
By now, I was bursting with incredulous laughter. I didn’t even know what to say. I nearly fell out of my chair.
This was, by far, the weirdest, most embarrassing conversation I’ve ever had with my dad. You have to picture just how unbelievable this conversation is.
My dad, at this point, just turned 65 years old.
He’s the husband of one woman—my mother—who he’s been married to for almost 40 years.
He’s the father of nine children.
He doesn’t believe in birth control.
HE’S A PASTOR.
And now, he’s calling me to ask if I just bought a bunch of sex toys online and accidentally sent them to his house.
And this wasn’t just a tiny box with one or two sex toys, either. It was a shocking amount: something like $380 worth. That box was FULL of adult items.
Our unbelievable conversation continues:
Me: “Well, Dad, I don’t know whether you’ll be pleased or disappointed to hear this, but no, I didn’t order those things. Do you think maybe your credit card was stolen, and someone put this in as a fraudulent order?”
Dad: “That was my first thought, too. I thought maybe someone stole my credit card and used it to buy this stuff but didn’t realize that it would be shipped to the address on the card. But I checked with my bank, and there’s no record of a payment to this store, or for this amount.”
Me: “That is so weird. So you’re saying, as far as you can tell, nothing was stolen?”
Dad: “Correct.”
Me: “So you’re saying that someone else—who was not you or me—actually paid hundreds of dollars for this big box of adult products?”
Dad: “Yes, the invoice says ‘paid in full.’”
Me: “Let me check my online bank account right now… hold on…”
As a man who works in website development and digital marketing, I have seen a lot of scams in my time. A fraudster ripping off a credit card number and buying $380 worth of any product is very common.
But this… I have never seen or heard of this before.
In this case, it appears that a fraudster used somebody’s credit card to buy hundreds of dollars worth of pleasure devices and then had them shipped to someone else’s house.
Nothing about that makes any sense.
Sometimes I do buy items on Amazon and I do use my dad’s address during checkout so the items I buy are sent to my parents’ home. Either because I’m buying them a gift, or because I’m about to go visit them and I want to have the item there when I arrive.
So my dad’s first instinct was a good one: if Ron Stauffer received a box of items that someone named Ron Stauffer paid for, but it wasn’t actually him, which other Ron Stauffer was it? It would be me. Right?
But it wasn’t me.
I didn’t buy it, and neither did he.
If the box had been addressed to, say, “Patrick Smith,” it would be very easy to figure out how to undo the mixup by simply contacting the company that shipped it. They could then look at their records and figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.
But it wasn’t addressed to a Patrick Smith. The box was addressed to, and paid for, by a Ron Stauffer. To this day, how this ever happened is still an unsolved mystery. An eternally, embarrassing, confusing mystery we’ll likely never have the answer to.
But I’ll tell you this: before I hung up the phone, I made sure to remind my dad about the uniqueness of this situation.
Me: “Well, Dad, I just checked my bank account, and I don’t see any charges for this purchase either. So, I guess it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t me who ended up paying for it.”
Dad: “That’s good… Well, son, this was an embarrassing phone call to make. I would have just dealt with it myself, but I figured I’d check with you just in case you had actually ordered it and paid for it before I sent it back.”
Me: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t send it back—I don’t think you can return products like that.”
Dad: “Oh, that’s a good point.”
Me: “It says ‘paid in full,’ right? So they’re not going to care.”
Dad: “Right. I guess I’ll just throw it all away.”
Me: “Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, maybe you actually could use a bottle of ‘Stay Hard’ spray, right?”
Dad: (Long pause and laughter) “Maybe I will.”
Me:” Dad, if you do, please, just don’t tell me.”
Parents, beware of naming your children after yourself. You may have to make an extremely awkward phone call sometime.
Names are interesting things. “What’s in a name?” I think a lot. I think the intention behind the name means a lot as well.
Great article.
OMG. You know I was dying laughing reading about that phone call! The craziest thing ever.