Cambridge Coincidences Collection

My immediate family has multiple examples of coincidences involving names. Examples: I have three children. My daughter is named Anna. My youngest son’s wife is named Anna. My oldest son’s first serious relationship, lasting eight years, was with a young woman named Anna. He is now married to Jana—finally a different name, but still very close. One more thing: all four of these women are attorneys. Two graduated from the same law school; two worked in the same public defender office in New Orleans. Those connections happened totally independent of the family link. Another example: our family had two dogs while my kids were growing up. We adopted both as adult dogs, and both were already named Jenny when we got them. Not a common dog’s name, btw. My former wife’s parents had a second home in a town on the New Jersey shore called Spring Lake. I now live near the beach in Delaware, in a condo community called Spring Lake. My kids grew up with summer beach vacations in Spring Lake. Now they bring their kids for beach vacations in a different Spring Lake. My youngest son and his wife Anna had the first grandchild on our side of the family.

Waiting in the waiting room to be called for my dental appointment, I was joined by a man - a fellow attendee. The receptionist came in and called out “Mr Greene?” I said “That’s me.” The other man said “That’s me.” The receptionist looked at us both and said “Mr Greene with an ‘e’.” I said “That’s me.” The other man said “That’s me.” The receptionist looked even more perplexed and said “Mr K Greene.” I said “That’s me.” The other man said “That’s me.” We looked at each other in amazement. I am Mr Kevin Greene and it turned out he was Mr Keith Greene. We both had a good laugh about this amazing coincidence and went on to have our respective dental appointments. I seriously considered buying a lottery ticket.

In 2018 I stayed in a large hotel - part of a well known chain - in San Francisco before flying back to the UK and checking into another large hotel - part of a different chain - in the London Docklands area. To my surprise I had the same room number, somewhere in the 400's I think. This has never happened to me before.

In the Summer of 1975, I was shopping in Sutton, Surrey around noon and had parked my motorcycle in a bay in Throwley Way. There was a telephone box on the pavement and on my return the phone was ringing. I thought I would answer it and tell the caller that they must have a wrong number as it was a call box, otherwise they would think the call had gone unanswered. When I answered the call, a voice said “Hello Andrew, can I speak to your mum”. I thought this a coincidence of names and said you must have mis-dialed because this was a phone box in Sutton high street. The caller said “Don’t mess about, I am at Victoria Station and have just arrived from Ireland and only have one more 10p coin, just put your mum on the phone, it’s your cousin Maria come to visit”. I looked around, thinking she must be playing a joke on me, perhaps she had seen me arrive and had called the phone box when I got back to my bike but Throwley Way is wide, there were no houses or other phone box nearby. I said “where are you” and she said “Victoria!”. I said I was in a phone box and held the door open hoping she could hear cars pass by but the traffic was light.