I was watching DS9 just now and it occurred to me: apparently in the future they have solved the problem of people having the same name. When talking via communicator you never hear "Sisko to Smith" and two different people try and respond. We've all worked in the place with two Bens or three Steves and there is confusion, but not in Starfleet.
The only logical conclusion is that the Federation assigns everyone a unique forename and surname at birth. Either that or you cannot be admitted to Starfleet if they have someone with your surname already.
@VoxDei @allstartrek Maybe individual officers would program their communicator to understand "Smith" as a particular Smith - one that the officer interacts with regularly. It would be like the speed dial we used to have on phones.
@Meowthias @allstartrek
"Sir, the Klingons are coming around again!"
"Who do we have left in Engineering?"
"Only Ensign Smith sir!"
"Captain to Smith, reverse the polarity of the thingummy, now!"
Computer: "Commander Smith has been killed"
Captain: "Dammit, Captain to Ens..."
*Boom*
@Meowthias Clearly there are ways round it, I just think the potential for comedy mix-ups is huge. 😂
Clearly this is something I will have to pay attention to in the future. Does the captain mean Chakotay her first officer, or Ensign Chakotay who works in waste extraction?
@VoxDei In this case, the Captain should have specified Ensign Smith in the first place.