Twins - do people ever say this to you?

[kateluvscats]

I'm an identical twin and live in a different part of the country to my twin sister.
On several occasions at work (in different departments) a person has called me my twins name, apologised then called me my correct name. They don't know my sister and they're not close colleagues. I have never mentioned my sisters name. This has happened maybe 4 or 5 times. Any other twins out there that this has happened to before? I find it all a bit spooky.

Is it because they're similar in people's minds? I've often been called Caroline which isn't my name but mine starts with a C and they come from the same era.

Is your name similar to your twin's name?

Me! I have actually done this! I knew a twin but I didn't know she was a twin (she was a teacher in my child's nursery) and so many times I went to call her Claire (not her name) I had no idea why I kept wanting to call her Claire. Then one day we were chatting and she told me she had an identical twin called Claire! I told her I kept almost calling her Claire too.

Their names weren't similar at all.

Is there a person with your sister's name where you work?

It makes more sense that they're mixing you up with another colleague. Rather than guessing your sisters name out of the millions of other names.

I called a friend by her (non-twin) sister's name a few times. We eventually worked out I had in fact known the sister as a child, about 15 years previously. We came from different places and everything - it was just one of those weird coincidences. Are you absolutely certain your colleagues haven't met your sister?

Lots. My sister lives in the neighbouring town so there have been lots of cases of mistaken identity 😂. I’ve even been threatened by people & seen people dive behind serving counters when I approach (she was a senior advisor at a Job Centre at the time). Once I had to peer over a butcher’s counter to say I’m not the one who can sanction you for working & claiming!

I’m not too bothered about the calling of my sister’s name though. My parents, in either an attempt to be cutesy or in a blind panic as twins arriving at our gestation in the early 70s & having been told, “They won’t survive, best you name them now,”and only having boy’s names chosen, actually called us the same name (imagine names like Lizzie and Lisbet).

What’s more annoying is my Dad, now in a care home, always calls me the wrong name. It’s not dementia (he’s in there for physical disability reasons). He’s just always bloody done it!

I don't think it's just twins, surely just a mistake?

People sometimes call me by my sisters name, they are not that similar and these people don't know my sister - it's just a coincidence

@cookiemonster2468

Is your name similar to your twin's name?

The names are very different, not similar at all.

@110APiccadilly

I called a friend by her (non-twin) sister's name a few times. We eventually worked out I had in fact known the sister as a child, about 15 years previously. We came from different places and everything - it was just one of those weird coincidences. Are you absolutely certain your colleagues haven't met your sister?

100% haven't met them

@Whinge

Is there a person with your sister's name where you work?

It makes more sense that they're mixing you up with another colleague. Rather than guessing your sisters name out of the millions of other names.

Agree with this. If you're 100% sure they don't know your sisters name and they have never met her it's much more likely they are mixing you up with another colleague.

@CentrifugalBumblePuppy whaaaat - the same name? So are your birth certificate names both, say, Elizabeth, but one is known as Lizzie and the other, Lisbet?

I'm a twin, and I have twin daughters myself, they both sadly passed away shortly after birth. I then had another daughter and I used to take her to swimming lessons, twice during her lessons, the swimming instructor called her by one of my twin daughters names. I'd never mentioned their names, but said she had two older sisters. I couldn't believe it when she first said it, as it's not an overly common name and thought I'd misheard her, but then she did jt again on another lesson, I never mentioned it, as I found it oddly comforting X