In reply to:
I shouldn't have to point this out, but GW isn't a junior. Junior only applies when all parts of the name are the same. His father is George H. W. Bush. So be it if I sound partisan here, but calling him junior is obviously a Democrat ploy to make him sound young and inexperienced, when in fact he's two years older than Gore, who actually was a junior, but, of course, no one cares to point any of this out. . .
A point well made, Jazz. The refernce to Al Gore, Jr. led me to wondering about the wonderfully "regal" habit popular among some US citizens of numbering themselves a la Thurston Howell III. Is this a vestigial yearning for days of yore, or monarchist pretensions peeking out from behind a republican (note the lower case "r")
façade? A friend of mine is Rarotongan, and their custom is for sons to be called "Junior" while their father is alive, then to assume their given name on his death. My friend is the fourth to bear his given name, which he doesn't like. Even though his father is dead, he still goes by Junior, with the result that his son is known as "Junior Jr."
