Mistaken Identities name twins on campus

Author: H. Kay Merriman

It is 4:58 p.m. on a Friday and your religion paper is due in two minutes. You've attached your Word file to an e-mail to send to your professor James Davis. The "Check Names" application of Outlook pops up after you click "send." In your rush, you simply select the first name on the list and breathe a sigh of relief as the clock changes to 5. You think you can relax, but sadly, your paper won't make it on time. In reality, your professor will never receive it at all because you just e-mailed all your hard work to James Davis '08, an International Studies major who has no interest in grading your paper.

This is just one of the many small hassles that come with having a "name twin" on campus. We have all seen the double-names on Webmail, but how does one really know what it is like to share an identity with someone else at a small school? The Middlebury Campus interviewed a few of the sets of "name-twins" in order to find out.

Davis '08 said he encountered the most trouble in the fall of 2004, his first semester at Middlebury.

"I received a lot of e-mail requests for recommendations from seniors," explained Davis. "Instead of listening to my more base instincts, and those of my fellow freshmen to delete these e-mails, I forwarded them to [Associate] Professor [of religion] James Calvin Davis. I did not think that these seniors deserved this courtesy, seeing as they had spent almost four years at Middlebury and could not get his full name."

Students are not the only ones baffled by the appearance of multiplicities of the same name in the College's e-mail database. Members of the Middlebury faculty also make the same mistake.

"There have been cases where I've missed invitations to academic events on campus because the faculty colleague in charge sent the invitation to the wrong James Davis and then took my failure to respond as a sign of my disinterest," said Professor Davis.

However, late papers and missed invitations seem inconsequential compared to the misallocation of scholarships between the Alexandra Fishers. Alexandra Bliss Fisher '10 told of her scholarship being placed in Alexandra Lee Fisher's '09 account. The problem was easily solved with a quick trip to the Financial Aid Office.

The mix-up, though, is understandable, considering that there are three Alexandra Fishers on campus. Alexandra Lee Fisher, who prefers to be called Lexie, lived in the same dorm as Alexandra Olivia Fisher '09, who prefers to be called Olivia, for two years.

"I had to go pick up my packages in her room a couple of times," Lexie said.

Connor Stewart '10, a fall transfer student from Duke, has yet to encounter any mix-ups with Conor Stewart '09 who is currently abroad, but it may just be a matter of time before his new friends become annoyed with the e-mail confusion.

"My friends will tell me that they don't e-mail me because they don't know which one I am," Lexie complained.

Professor Davis has found a solution to the e-mail inconvenience that comes with sharing a name, but is not completely satisfied with the result.

"The potential for mix-up got annoying enough a couple of years ago that I asked the College's tech people to add the word 'professor' to my listing in the electronic address book," Professor Davis said. "Now, nearly everywhere you look on the College's ebsite, my name is interrupted by the word 'professor,' as if I'm trying to remind people of my accomplishments. In reality, I'm just trying to make sure I get my e-mails."

So, if there is any chance that your friends or your professors have a "name-twin" on campus, learn their middle name. It will save you - and them ≠- a lot of trouble.