The crowd sat silent in the gym, barely containing their eagerness to split off into teams as Mr.Walton announced the Biddeford All-Academic Athletes. The hot dry room kept the students on edge. While most years, only the names change at the banquet; this one turned out differently.

“Ben Plante,” called Mr.Walton.

Without a middle initial added, confusion set in. Two seniors sat in that gym, a cross country runner and a football player, both named Ben Plante. In this case Ben J. Plante, football, walked up and received the reward, but it was meant for Ben S. Plante, the runner .

“I wasn’t supposed to get that award,” said Ben J. “It was the other Ben’s grades, with my name.”

Thankfully for them, everything turned out as it should.

“I didn’t think it was all that bad,” said Ben S. “They mentioned that there was a mixup at the awards, and they fixed it all there.”

The confusion from sharing names occurred most often when transitioning from middle school to high school. This led to frustration during their freshmen year, as the system for setting up school related accounts didn’t consider two people with the same name.

“With the school emails, one of us had to change our emails, so we weren’t using the same one,” said J. Plante, with a hint of irritation in his voice. “All of those college accounts ,like Naviance and stuff, need to be changed in some little way because they use the same username and password.”

While the two Bens share more information on paper than most, they are not alone in name-related confusion. Their personalities and activities differ enough that once you get to know them, the confusion subsides. On a personal level, it barely affects the two, but in the case of Ryan Minzy’s AP US history class, the sheer number of common first names creates issues. With two Jacob B.’s, a James, and Josh, as well as Kaylee and Calea both thrown into the mix.

“It’s not a huge problem; you just can’t react as fast when talking to them,” Minzy said.

In the class, he needs to pause and think before he addresses the students. Even though he knows who they are, the four J-names trip him up.

“You don’t want the students to think that you don’t care about them, because you do,” said Minzy. “But that hitch before you speak sends that message to them.”

While their names are spelled differently, Kaylee Blanchard and Calea Roy use the same pronunciation. Both say they haven’t encountered this situation before.

Even though it can be puzzling at times, she thinks of it as different, nothing too life changing. A big part of dealing with this identity “dilemma” in Biddeford is adapting to it.

“It doesn’t really make a difference in my learning,” said Blanchard. “Calea Roy usually talks more than I do, so that makes it easier.”

This year, Minzy came with experience to deal with the name complications.

“I had a year where I had four Hannahs in one class,” said Minzy. “It was so ridiculous that it was easy. Eventually we all just gave up with figuring names out, which was very freeing.”

Living with the same name seems to complicate things for those involved but, most say it entertains them. Each of the Bens enjoy hearing adults mess up their names occasionally.

“One time my parents got a call from the bus company that said I was misbehaving,” recalls S. Plante with a smile. “It was actually the other Ben Plante.”

An incident like this happens rarely, but sometimes ordinary mishaps bring smiles to a classroom’s faces.

“It’s fun to hear the teachers mess up when we’re in the same class,” said J. Plante with a chuckle. “Sometimes they think they’re reading the attendance wrong.”

While one may think that sharing names makes lives difficult, it seems to be something the affected learn to deal with. Most accounts agree that paperwork creates a problem, but in interactions they learn to understand mistakes and take them lightly. It looks like names play a small role in the complex definition of a person.