Cases when two children in large families were called by the same name are not uncommon for the 18th-19th centuries. Mostly this happened when, after the death of the eldest child, the younger one was called by the same name - either in memory of the deceased child, or due to other coincidences. However, cases were not uncommon when a family had two, or even three living children with the same name.
The family of Thomas Nikiforovich and Matrona Gavrilivna Archipenki in the confessional painting of the Pokrovsk Church of the village of Dmytrenko in the Kyiv region for 1823. Two Agafias are noted in the list of children. TsDIAK. F. 127 Op. 1015 Sp. 327a Ark. 236zv.
This did not happen because the parents lacked imagination or because the repertoire of names was so narrow. When giving a child a name, they primarily took into account which saint the Church honored on the day of baptism. So, for example, if a child was baptized on St. John's Day, he should have been called Ivan first. They preferred not to deviate from this rule so as not to lose the patron saint's protection. Ultimately, this explains why the names Ivan, Maria, or Anna were so common - each of them is associated with a patron saint, who is honored several times a year.
However, often the official names given at baptism could differ from the household names used in the family on a daily basis. After all, the main task of a name is to identify a person, and when there are two little Stepans or two Annas running around in the house, this complicates communication in the family. Sometimes the household name could eventually replace even the official one, which appears in church documents. Therefore, a person could be recorded under one name in childhood, and under another in adulthood.
Here is an interesting case when the family had as many as four daughters named Agafia. In one of the villages in the Kyiv region in the first third of the 19th century, there lived the family of a certain Foma Nikiforovich Archipenko. After two marriages, he had as many as 14 children, and four of them were called Agafia. The eldest of them was born around 1805, but died two years later, on May 12, 1807.[1] The second Agafia was born around 1806, the third about a year later. Both younger Agafias are mentioned in the confessional register of the parishioners of the local church for 1823.[2]. Another, this time the fourth Agafia was born in the second marriage of Thomas Archipenko on April 16, 1827. [3]
[1] TsDIAK. F. 127 Op. 1012 Sp. 1278 Ark. 105zv.-106.
[2] CDIAK. F. 127 Op. 1015 Sp. 327a Ark. 236 vol.
[3] CDIAK. F. 127 Op. 1012 File 1575a Ark. 156zv.-157.