My husband and I have been married for 31 years, and this is my story. We met Jan.3, 1980 and married Jan. 25, 1980. He is from N C and me SC. My name is Mary Elizabeth and I go by Mary,i am now 62. His oldest sister now 89--Mary Elizabeth is her name. She lived in SC for years and moved back to NC, we bought her house.Everything we have done to the house, People in our community says what would Mary Elizabeth say, I answer I just did. They forget I am Mary Elizabeth.

My DH has the name problem also and this can sometimes be a nitemare. I have the same name and middle name as some one else so I had to put a code, because we got the wrong R/X.

Wonder how the Duggar's with their 18 (or is it more now?) kids get on with all the kids having their name starting with 'J' ?

Same kind of things happened to us, with a Kyle and a Kyrk. They get mixed up all the time. But, the scariest time was when they mixed up Kyle and Kyrk and gave Kyle pennicillin, thinking he was Kyrk. It was in the hospital, and he stopped breathing. But, all came out well.

My friend's husband was pulled over by state troopers and they surrounded him with guns. They ran a check on his license plate and saw his wife's name on the car registration, and she was wanted. Different lady with same name. My friend is the last person on earth who the police would ever want. They thought it was funny until they asked a police officer friend to run a check on the name. He chuckled too, until the check on the name showed the other woman with the same name was wanted on numerous felonies and was listed as armed and dangerous. He warned them to immediately take any request by cops to pull over, raise hands, submit to search very seriously and to obey then explain. Her college-age daughter was also followed back to campus by police and pulled over to have her car searched because it was in mom's name. They got my friend's name off all the titles to the cars after that.

Once, in Tucson, a collection company tried to get me to pay a bill for someone else with my name. It was a bad debt on a J C Penny credit card - which I have never had. The 2nd or 3rd time they called, they made the mistake of saying that the last 4 digits of my social security # were ABCD. I told them that wasn't mine. They kept calling, and after a month or so, I told them the law required them to send me written notice (which is true). I had called the Tucson DA's office to report that they were hassling me, and that's when I found out that the collections agency had to send me written notice BEFORE they started calling on the telephone. Actually, I was lucky, because they never called in the middle of the night, like you hear in some nightmare stories.

It turned out, It was a collections agency from a city in another state, so the Tucson DA couldn't do anything about the erroneous hassling. I wrote to the Chamber of Commerce, the Better Business Bureau and the State Attorney General of the City and State where the collections agency was located - with a copy to the collection agency. I never heard from them again. But it was a royal pain in the A for a couple of months.

Once, in Tucson, a collection company tried to get me to pay a bill for someone else with the same first and last name. They probably just looked in the phone book, and started calling people with our last name. My husband's first name is Charles, so I was probably the first one to answer their call. When the person said 'Is this Joanne S------?' I asked 'Who's calling?' That's what I always do when the voice isn't familiar. He just started saying had to pay an overdue bad debt on a J C Penny credit card. I told him I have never had a J C Penney credit card. Of course, he didn't believe me. I didn't argue with him. I just hung up.

The 2nd or 3rd time he called, he made the mistake of asking if the last 4 digits of my social security # were ABCD. I told him that wasn't mine. He kept calling, and after a month or so, I told him the law required him to send me written notice of the debt (which is true). I had called the Tucson DA's office to report that they were hassling me, and that's when I found out that the collections agency had to send me written notice BEFORE they started calling on the telephone. Actually, I was lucky, because they never called in the middle of the night, like you hear in some nightmare stories.

It turned out that it was a collections agency from a city in another state, so the Tucson DA couldn't do anything about the hassling. I wrote to the Chamber of Commerce, the Better Business Bureau and the State Attorney General of the City and State where the collections agency was located - with a copy to the collection agency. I never heard from them again. But it was a royal pain in the A~~ for a couple of months.

Live and learn. I don't know why my parents didn't think of anything other than just plain Ann!!!!

They probibly just bought the debt from a collection agency for pennies on the dollar, looking for a return, and you where a close enough name to try, Don't be suprised if this resurfaces, tese tend to go round and round. Good Luck !!

My dad and mom had the same surname, so every year when you had to fill the information paper for the school my sister and I got in trouble. It went from "Dont you know your mother family name to go into detention because of our "stupidity. But we never told them that when my mother"s brother married his wife had the same first name than my mom.