If you give birth to identical twins, is it permitted to give them identical names and, if you did,

If you give birth to identical twins, is it permitted to give them identical names and, if you did, what would be the implications?

Peter Williams, Melbourne, Australia

• Think about it from an ethical point of view... Would you want to refuse the right for the twins to not have their own identity?

  Jenny Allen, Woking, UK

• There are no laws against it in the US. There are many people here that give their children the same exact name as one of the parents and add a Jr. after it. For instance: American Boxer George Foreman named all five of his sons George Edward Foreman. One of his daughters is named Georgetta.

  I'm sure the consequences would be the same as for people that are Juniors - like my husband is. There can be mix-ups with driving records, credit reports, and all sorts of record-keeping snafus. Even with different drivers license numbers and social security numbers these things could occur.

  Rhonda, Tampa, USA

• I heard of a pair of twins called Benjamin and Benedict, but I don't know how they coped with both being known as 'Ben'. I also knew of a pair of twins who'd been born to perhaps not the brightest of mothers. She named them Sharon and Notsharon.

  Rachel, Manchester UK

• Perhaps the reader is concerned about the possible philosophical implications. Two identical objects, with the same name, might seem to teeter on the brink of the existential crisis of being only one object. Never fear, the twins are only type-identical, not token-identical -- shown chiefly by the fact that they aren't in (exactly) the same place at the same time. So they will always be two. The only twins who could possibly be a single object would be extremely conjoined twins, each of which entirely shared the body of the other. Who can say that each us isn't one (or two) of those.

  Claire, Durham UK