How does your school differentiate kids with same name?

[CastleTower]

Just to be clear, this is all very lighthearted, and I'm just wondering what your school does.

My eldest started school recently, and it turns out that someone in her class has a sibling who will be in her younger sibling's year, and has the same name. So let's say two girls both have a younger brother called Noah the same age.

Normally I'd assume they'd be (for example) Noah A and Noah B but they actually have the same last initial too!

It's not a name with any obvious nickname or shortening, so that's out. I suppose one is blond and one dark...?

We and the other parents have all had a good laugh about it, and no one is feeling hard done by or anything. But I was wondering how you would go about differentiating in this instance? Just full first name + last name at all times? Has anyone had this at their school?

My uncle was concerned that when they met children from his dd's nursery, they'd always say "There's Emily Coles", not just "Emily".
He said, "you say, 'come and do a nice painting, Emily,' or 'get down from there Emily Coles!'"
He was very relieved when we pointed out it probably just meant there was another Emily in the group!

There were 8 Zoes in my sisters year. 3 of whom were Zoe H. They were just known as Zoe Harris, Zoe Heston and Zoe Hernandez. (Not the actual surnames).

Full name. 4 of the same in my son’s class, 2 with the same initial. It’s funny how they will even call them ‘Tommy Smith’ to their face instead of just Tommy! Big fear of mine as one of my sons name is in the top 5 boys but luckily avoided it so far (primary school)

They use the full name. Not sure what they would do if they had two John Smiths especially if in the same year.

I'm a secondary teacher and have loads of duplicate names in my classes, including one pair who have the exact same first name and surname! Tbh generally with duplicates I mostly don't assign them 'official' differentiating names. I'll either add the surname initial or just rely on it being obvious which one I'm talking to based on who I'm looking at! With the total duplucate pair I've given them numbers on my Class Dojo screen (based on which form they're in), but I just call them by their first name and look at them when I'm talking to them. It really isn't a big issue tbh.

I have a class of 22 and 4 are called Emily. 1/3 of the girls in the class are Emily.

I do Emily while looking them in the eye. But full names if I refer to them and it wouldn't be clear.

It really is not unusual. And the range of last names in parts of Scotland I have worked in can be quite narrow.

I once taught two Thomas Jones in the same class. Luckily it was a mixed age class so one was Tom y5 and the other Tom y6.

There were 4 girls with the same first name in DD's class. They used the first initial of their surnames until they got to DD. They wanted to use DD's full name which was abbreviated. DD refused to answer to it, so they used first name & 2 letters from her last name, as one of the others had the first initial.

There were 4 classes in her year group and I never understood why they didn't put one in each group.

To complicate matters further, there was another girl in her class who shared DD's birthday. Their surname was the same except for different letters at the end. DD's full first name was this girl's middle name. Eg. Lucy Isabel Symmons and Isabel Jane Symmond with the same birthday.

We had Lucy Mak and Lucy Mal

Evie R

Evie S

Evie P

Etc

In my ballet class in the late 70s I remember there was:
Big Lisa
Little Lisa
Medium Lisa

it was based on height rather than ‘bigness’

I'm an Ellie and had 2 other Ellie's in the same class in school.

I was Ellie SM
One was Ellie H
And other was Ellie SH
These after the starts of our second names😂

In my DD's friendship group at secondary school there were 2 lads with the same name and they referred to them as 'John' 1 and 'John' 2. This was just in their group of friends however, no idea what the teachers called them.

With the kids it's Big and Little. My son was a Little so like Little Jimmy as there was already a Jimmy who became Big Jimmy and then after he left my son became Just Jimmy which stuck for quite a while 🤣 (he's now simply Jimmy as he's the only one with his name now)

There are two lots of two girls with the same name in ds's class and one set also have a very similar surname with the same initial. All four are always their whole name. I think they always will be now even if the other one leaves.

I ask if the child is known by any nickname and if the child and parent are happy for me to use a nickname. Other times I ask the child what they’d like me to call them and some ask for first and middle name to be used. Basically, just ask the child and parents/carers and go from there.

One boy asked me to call him Bob and it always made him giggle when I used it.

We had so many multiples when I was at school e.g. 3 called Sarah, Philip, Thomas and John etc. 30 years later I still call them by both their first and surname when I think of them. I expect it's the same these days.

I knew two girls called "plain Jane" and "awkward Jane" to distinguish them. I thought this was some awful reference to their looks or personality. Then found out that it was spelling. Jane and Jayne!

They would use the full name.

I was at school with a girl with the same first and last name as me, but first name spelt differently.

So she was "Katy Robinson" and I was "Katie "ie" Robinson".

At our school it's extremely common for the children to not only have the same first name but also the same last name. I have three girls in one of my classes with exactly the same name. I use their village as a differentiation. First name + village. Again that's pretty normal here.

Harry Trains
Harry Cars
Harry Doctorwho
Harry Cheese

Kind of felt sorry for Harry Cheese having that as his defining characteristic, but I suppose it was better than Harry Nose, as that would have been the alternative from what his Mum used to say to him every morning in the playground.

ETA: I had it at my Saturday job - Big Mooncup, Little Mooncup and me, as I was 15, Baby Mooncup.