Namesake

We mostly use “namesake” when two people have both the same first name and the same last name.

The idea really originates from the custom (not as common now as it used to be) for parents to name their oldest children after themselves. So, John and Mary Smith might call their first son John and their first daughter Mary. The younger John Smith would be his father’s namesake and the younger Mary Smith would be her mother’s namesake.

Nowadays the word is used when any two people have the same name as each other. Some years ago, I received some letters for a Graham Reeves who was a builder. It wasn’t me but my namesake – who I didn’t know.

We occasionally use “namesake” when we’re talking about someone with the same last name but a different first name. So, it might be possible for me to say that I am the namesake (or “near namesake”) of the comedian and artist, Vic Reeves.

Very occasionally we use “namesake” when we’re talking about people with the same first name. If I met someone else called Graham, we might say that we were namesakes.

But the main use is still for people with the same first and last name.

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We used to call someone’s first name their “Christian name”. Now that the country is much more multi-cultural, we usually say “first name” or “given name”. Sometimes we might say “forename” – where “fore” means “front” or “before”. I only have one given name but many people have two – or even more.

In British English we usually use the words “surname” or “family name” instead of “last name”. This is because in some cultures the family name comes first, and the last name is the given name.

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_{Thanks to Daria for the question}