Hi Dave,

Bear in mind each each person that treats you has to make sure they're talking to/treating the correct person - more than one person from the same family could be in at the same time or, busy A&E, there could be more than one patient called e.g. Smith or Jones? You wouldn't want to be mixed up with someone with same name who has, say, an appointment with the proctologist?

Here, my Scottish surname isn't uncommon even though there's only four in our family; there can be several different spellings of a surname pronounced the same; our local medical practice, "Grant" is so common, it has a separate records filing cabinet ...

Regards,