Doppelganger (article summary)
My article from last Shabbos was Two Yosef ben Shimons, which you can now read. (HTML, flipbook, paid Substack.)
They omitted Figure 3, so I will include it here:
The Jewish Link has also updated their website, so the images, captions, and so on look much nicer. I have less of an impetus to go into great detail, so I will keep my summary short.
Hey look, there are people with similar names, such as two Rabbi Josh Waxmans in Bergen County, or two Rabbi Aryeh Le(i)bowitzes on YUTorah! This is similar to two Yosef ben Shimons in a single town, discussed by the gemara.
We can wonder whether Yosef and Shimon are actually common names for Tannaim / Amoraim, and whether less common names would present the same worry. So, using a modified version of the Satlow / Sperling list, I used to Excel to make a column with just the first names of each Sage. Then, I further counted each instance of each name, and made a chart.
Indeed, Yosef and Shimon were extremely common names:
I then calculate the probabilities of two Yosef ben Shimons.
I also discussed the practice, mentioned in the gemara, of making a hole in the get over a certain randomly selected letter, which can then serve as a siman muvhak. I noted present-day practice, when the get is sent by mail, to make three randomly-selected holes, and calculate the probability of that.