Re: names names names...

["A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@attorneyross.com>]

On 10 Dec 2001 at 1:21, Joseph Pappalardo wrote:

> There were TWO Bob Raleigh's on competing stations in DC for many
> years...even though for one of them it was indeed his real name.
> 
> There has to be some legal boundaries beyond simply using the same name.
> 
> Counselor...?  Care to speculate?

Not really.  There are some rules that have been used in some segments of 
the entertainment industry, but I'm not sure whether they are law.  I 
know that when Jack Benny was in vaudeville, he used the name "Ben Benny 
(His real name was Benjamin Kubelski) until he got a complaint from Ben 
Bernie.  I think that actor Harry Morgan's name was Henry, but he 
couldn't use it because there was already a Henry Morgan.  But there seem 
to be two Vanessa Williamses.

Of course, in the political arena, there have often been name confusion, 
sometimes deliberate.  There have been quite a few John McDonoughs 
running for office at various times, and of course, back in 1978, two Ed 
Kings.  The most successful, I suppose, was John F. Kennedy, who was 
elected state treasurer three times back in the 1950s, with almost no 
campaigning, solely because of the name.   In the 1970 British general 
election, someone named Edward Heath ran for Parliament in the same 
district as the Conservative Party leader of the same name.  It might 
have worked, except that, for the first time in a British election, 
candidates' party affiliations were printed on the ballot.

In the 1968 election, someone I knew suggested that the ideal 
Presidential ticket would have been Wallace and McCarthy.  He figured 
knee-jerk liberals would think it was Henry Wallace and knee-jerk 
conservatives would think it was Joe McCarthy.

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
 15 Court Square, Suite 210                 lawyer@attorneyross.com
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