Notorious Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu (1918-1989) was one of nine surviving siblings:
- Niculina Ceausescu
- Marin Ceausescu
- Nicolae Ceausescu
- Florea Ceausescu
- Nicolae Ceausescu
- Ilie Ceausescu
- Maria Ceausescu
- Elena Ceausescu
- Ion Ceausescu
Did you catch it? Nicolae is listed twice. The first one is the dictator, the second one is his younger brother, born when the first Nicolae was about 6.
Ceausescu biographer John Sweeney writes off the repetition: “His parents had more children than they knew names.”
But here’s how Alice Miller, psychologist and child abuse expert, explains it:
To my question as to how a brother could also be christened Nicolae, I repeatedly received the reply that the father was drunk “as usual” at the time the child was named. By all accounts, he had simply forgotten that he already had a son named Nicolae — though no one could explain to me how Ceausescu’s mother could also forget that fact. This information seemed to arouse little surprise in Bucharest.
She also says the situation “throws light on the dictator’s obsessive desire for revenge,” which must have come from his “insatiable determination to gain at last the recognition completely denied him as a child.”
I haven’t found anything to verify Alice’s version of the story but, if true, it’s rather depressing. Naming and drinking do not mix. (Robert could have told you that.)
Sources:
- Miller, Alice. Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: The Liberating Experience of Facing Painful Truth. New York: Dutton, 1991.
- Sweeney, John. The Life and Evil Times of Nicolae Ceausescu. London: Hutchinson, 1991.