Is writing a father and son with the same name confusing?

[BlueWorldComics]

I'm writing a book where the fact that the father and son have the same name is relevant to the plot.

Pretty much all of the writing advice I've learned tells you not to have characters with similar names because it's confusing to track for the reader. I've also found writing it to be a bit of hassle because of the awkwardness of writing Sr. and Jr. all the time.

My solution was to have the son, Bernard Jr., go by Bernie most of the time, but somehow I feel like that makes things worse. The only other thing I can think of is just having the two of them go by Senior and Junior respectively.

Any advice?

P.S. I know that TECHNICALLY as the author I can do whatever I want, so if possible let's skip past that level of advice for the time being, please

[Crusoe]

I think it'll be fine. There's plenty of ways you can describe them that makes it clear who you're talking about. Another way that may help is that you can have characters use their surname to talk to the father. "Mr this"

[VibrantFox]

I'd say bouncing between what you mentioned could work so when younger folks are referring to Senior they're more formal about it (using Mister or Sir and things like that) while with Junior you can use more informal nicknames and the like

if anything there's also middle names if your characters have them so if the MN can work as a first then that could do it

[faisalhussein394]

Well, if we are talking about succession and Royalty we could always add in Bernard the 1st, then Bernard the 2nd like how kings, and queens are organized when they have the same name.

[darthmongoose]

Well... Wuthering Heights got away with it!

I imagine if you treat it as you said, with most people calling them by nicknames, it'll work. Names are pretty flexible, and I imagine a lot of the time, the senior one will be called "Sir" or "Dad" or "Mr. [Name]", while the younger one might get called "Junior", "Kid", "Bernie", "Son", "Boy".

Another common thing in families with inherited family names, is that the younger goes by their middle name as their daily use name. Or the middle name gets used to differentiate that person from others. So Bernard Junior, if his name is say Bernard Edward Smith, might go by "Eddie" most of the time, and people might be surprised to learn his first name isn't the one he uses. My partner actually grew up being called their middle name by their family, and eventually changed it legally in the end.

[Katzalcoatl]

It depends how you wrote the story. If you write the story from the POV of Bernard Jr. It will not be confusing. If you are writing from an omniscient point of view then avoid using both bernards in the same scene unless it is necessary and use other characters to give the reader a hint to which bernard you are refering.

For example, if you write about teenagers Bernard Senior will not be hanging out with them. In this scenario it is pretty clear which bernard you are talking about.

When people have the same name in the same place common friends refer to them differently. It is pretty common in certain countries to have the same name as your father but you do not get adressed the same way.

Make these disctintions slowly. Do not confuse the reader. The father can refer to his son simply as "son". And the friends of the son (if he is underage) can call the father Mr. Smith (don't know his last name).

There are tons of ways to go about it. Basically just use formal speech when refering to the father and informal speech when refereing to the son.

[NickRowler]

As someone who had a grandpa and uncle IRL who had the same name, the thing that helps clear up confusion is having different nicknames.

It does make sense for the son to go by Bernie or Junior, plus the dad would maybe just call him stuff like, Son or Champ.

For the father, you won’t use Senior within the family. Grandpa, Dad, Daddy, Pop, Papa, etc. would be more commonly used. People outside the family would just use Bernard.

Or have variations on the same name. If both were named Robert, the two would be called Bob and Rob.

[cherrystark]

My MC was named after her dad. Her dad goes by his surname.

[system]

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