During the medieval ages, how did people distinguish between each other with the same first name (I guess only name)...

During the medieval ages, how did people distinguish between each other with the same first name (I guess only name)? Like a city of any size is clearly going to have a bunch of Johns and Sarahs, right? And if you traveled, would you call yourself just Sarah or Sarah of London when outside of London? If you were like a traveling merchant, would you really just call yourself John?

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X the Y from Z, son/daughter of Q the R from Z.
Descriptives such as hair colours, size indicators, etc., or nicknames could also be added.

/thread

John the Big, John the Little, John the Fat, John the Hairy
John Northside, John the Tanner, Old John, Young John
John son of Bob, John with the clubfoot, Squinty John
John from Vinci ("da Vinci"), John Pilgrim, John-who-went-to-France

>During the medieval ages, how did people distinguish between each other with the same first name (I guess only name)?

Unless this one historian was lying to me, apparently they didn't. Because the historian swears up and down that there really were a bunch of medieval cases where Original John would go to war and then someone else would go home to John's wife Sarah after a month and say "Hi honey, John's back!" and pretend to be John and then Sarah would fuck the random guy for two years before original John actually came home and was all "Hi ho... what the fuck?"

You'd think surely someone would notice, certainly the WIFE would notice, but apparently no, if a guy calls himself John and behaves like John (i.e. living in John's house, doing John's job, fucking John's wife) then everyone will accept that the guy is John.

It's a fascinating theory of identity where everyone is like actors at a theatre: whoever wears the mask and plays the part is the character.

They had surnames, and only knew a few people anyway.

Basically this.

A
Fancy Helmet. +painted armor.

>Academic promoting cucking

Why am I not surprised.

Sauce?

No As Big As Medium Sized Jock But Bigger Than Wee Jock Jock

That sounds dubious as hell, I'd need to see a decent source to believe that. I've never seen any indication that medieval societies operated like that, that identity was that fluid, in fact in most cases, it's usually the opposite, where identity was extremely rigid and defined by all sorts of external factors.

I'm sure there were cases where a noble woman who believed herself widowed might take a lover and attempt to convince people it was her husband if they looked similar enough, since being a married woman > widow in most medieval societies, and the man obviously benefits, but that's a deception of others not an acceptance of the replacement by others.

I think he might have been pulling your leg there.

Not so much "cucking" as "whoever acts like John, is John" as I understood it. When Real John came back there was hell to pay and lawyering.

None. Going on memory, and is entirely possible the historian was having me on in the first place.

Ragnar Hairy Pants, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, Rollo the Walker, Ivar the Boneless etc etc

>youtube.com/watch?v=HOa_YMOzEGQ

Even if it's fake I might steal it for worldbuilding now and have a city that works like that. Maybe change "name" to something more concrete and visible, like a pattern of face paint. If you kidnap a guy, scrub him down and paint yourself you can replace him.

Fucking nomes, man.

Either you're trolling, or someone was blowing smoke up your ass. People had surnames back then.

You deserve a kek for that

Pictsies.

>During the medieval ages, how did people distinguish between each other with the same first name

During the middle ages, the vast majority of people never lived among a population larger than the "monkeysphere" maximum of about 200-250 people. They could tell John from John and talk about John instead of John because everyone involved intimately knew both Johns for their entire lives.

The existence of small population clusters like that and the fact that the vast majority of the population in them and never left are among the reasons stupid fucks like yourself simply cannot grasp what should be simple aspects of historical cultures.

You clueless fucks live among 1000s, tens of 1000s, or even millions, automatically assume your experiences are "universal", and thus can't begin to comprehend a world in which only 200 people or so make up the entirety of everyone a person would know or meet in a lifetime.

For the rare person of the period who moved around and/or lived among larger populations, the explanation gave is how things were handled.

Either by "son of"
John son of Dan or John Danson

Or by stating his proffesion.

John Miller, John Baker, John Smith ect.