Suffixes

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bcliff

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Hi all,

I have kind of a strange question. My dad and I have the same name (I have a Jr. tacked on to the end of my legal name). I don't use the Jr. on any of my presentations or manuscripts or really anything that I'm professionally affiliated with, but as I apply to graduate school and start working on my professional career I have this nightmare of being referred to as Dr. Last Name Jr. or seeing Jr. pop up in citations etc. - Do any of these concerns seem reasonable? Is it worth looking into having the Jr. removed?

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I have known some father and son psychologists and it seems that some differentiate with using middle name or II rather than junior.

I have a common first and last name but uncommon middle name so I use my middle name included with my first and last name on all of my professional stuff.

I have been mistaken for other psychologist with my first and last name in the past.

You could hyphenate your last name if you are married :)


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I've seen both the Jr. included on pubs, and what OneNeuroDoctor mentioned (i.e., differentiated by middle initial). There's another researcher who has the first letter of my first name and my semi-uncommon last name, so the middle initial often differentiates us (as does the fact that he apparently works in biomedical science rather than psych/neuropsych).

You typically get to choose how you want your name listed in journals. Although when it comes to things like your degree, that might be based on legal name (I was able to choose how I wanted my name to appear on my license, though).
 
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You typically get to choose how you want your name listed in journals. Although when it comes to things like your degree, that might be based on legal name (I was able to choose how I wanted my name to appear on my license, though).

Your name on pubs does not have to be your legal name. I'm Mike on all my pubs because I have never been called anything else (I don't even turn my head if someone says "Michael"), though that's not my legal name.

Use of II would be weird. II is a designation typically given to name someone after a person who is NOT the parent (Jr child if the parent has the same first and middle name), and is usually only used if the middle name is the same too.
 
My dad is in a completely different field than I am, so there wouldn't be any issues with disambiguation. I'm already pretty young (as far as grad students go), so I'd like to avoid any extra emphasis on how much of a junior I am, plus I have always kind of resented the suffix regardless. I could also see people thinking the Jr. is another type of degree and that could be awkward to explain.

I've heard it's bad form to remove it, especially since my dad is still alive, but we would still have the same name (more so actually since he doesn't have a suffix on the end of his name). I could just wait until I get married to change it, but I'd rather nip it in the bud sooner rather than later to avoid any confusion, especially as I start to publish and present more of my own research.
 
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