Your relative may have given two of their children names that in their native language sounded similar, but were different. Those two names could have been anglicized or translated into the same name. My great-grandparents had a daughter Anna and Anke, named for their grandmothers. Anke is frequently anglicized to Anna.

To use names that sounded different, the one named Anna used her middle name of Margaret and Anke used Anna.

An earlier couple had sons named Janns and Johann, both of whom went by John.

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  1. I once found a family with daughters Mary Ann and Mary Anna, obviously named after two different ladies, neither one of which the family wanted to leave out.

  2. My mother found a poem “Naming the Baby” . I think it has been lost by no but it was about a couple who had a new baby boy and didn’t know what to name him so they sat down and though of names and as the list grew t, their decision grew greater, Uncle William would be hurt if we dropped that name and Dad really wants us to name him James Na on and on it went so they decided to keep alll te names and the poor kid had about 20. When he got to school the kids called him John.

    I wish I had that poem – we used to ask our mother to read it to us and she wold pull it out of its safe place and read,

    It was in the Boston Globe ,sometime in the 1930s, I think.

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