Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluenoser
OOTP does a darn good job at getting around it. Five players with the same name - please give me some sample size,
because it doesn't happen that often.
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Six Marcus Johanssons in the database; according to eliteprospects 17 have been active at some point in the 2000's. No easy way to distinguish them besides birthdate; middle names wouldn't be useful because Swedish naming doesn't always follow the first-middle-last convention. The Caps' Marcus Johansson, the best-known one, doesn't have a middle name as far as I can tell; the second most-prominent one, an Allsvenskan defenceman, is actually Björn Ola Marcus Johansson, but goes by his third name, which isn't an uncommon practice. Other important hockey countries have similar practices with middle names.
There's also the research issue of trying to discover middle names. For NHLers, not that difficult; in other countries or for more obscure players, the information isn't readily available. Birthdates are far, far easier to find. Using middle names may be convenient for people building picture sets, but it offloads the work onto the researchers, who already have plenty.