I've seen this before a few times in the area around Radomsko, but it is unusual.

I think part of the answer is that people's official names, as listed on a birth Akta, weren't necessarily the same as their Hebrew names.

Jeremy Lichtman
Toronto, Canada

Did one of both of them have a Sephardic background? I believe they do name babies after living relatives. Linda Cohen Morzillo

Hello,
Could you explain - why you write around Radmonsko? My grandparents are from Radomsko. Would be interested to know.

best regards,
Joanne Grosman
Grosman, Garbarski, Altman, Bocian and Kremsdorf
Czestochowa and Radomsko

When I see a newborn named after a living parent, I check to see if the baby died or was a stillbirth before he or she was given a name.

Sometimes a stillbirth baby was given a combination of the parents’ given names.

Some parents repeated the same given name after a child died.

Also have seen a baby named after her mother when the mother died in childbirth, apparently to keep the mother’s memory alive.

Linda Wolfe Kelley
Portland, OR, USA

Ina Getzoff explained the "pecking order" in regards to naming after living relatives. This is very common in Italy where my husband's paternal side originates. Makes genealogy a bit confusing. 

On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 07:43 PM, Ina Getzoff wrote:
This is typical of patronymic naming as occurred in some countries such as Netherlands (Holland) where surnames generally did not come into existence until 1811 by decree of Napoleon. Further, female babies may have been named after a male relative by feminising the name, adding letters such as "je" to the end of the male name. For instance Pieter(Pijter)/Piet becomes female Pietje (modern form is Petra).

 

I am Sephardic and it is an accepted custom to name new born babies for living relatives. Generally if the first born is a boy he will be named after his paternal grandfather. If the second child is a girl she will be named after her paternal grandmother. If there is another boy he will be named after his maternal grandfather and another girl will be named after her maternal grandmother. After that it is up to the parents who they may choose to honor with names of any additional children.

SEPHARDIM name after the living.
I had a dear friend in high school that was
named after her father.
Barbara Singer Meis

I've seen it a handful of times in some of the small villages in that area. Twice among relatives of mine (surname was Szklarczyk).

I don't have any evidence to suggest that they were Sephardim or Yekkes.

More likely, these are the "official" Polish document names, and not their "lashon kodesh" (Hebrew) names, which would likely be different.

Also: if somebody is named "Moshe Abram" and another child is called "Moshe Herz" (just for example), those aren't considered to be the same name.

As far as I know, in Jewish law it is forbidden to name a child after a living parent because it violates the Fourth Commandment, to honor your parents - somebody might mix up a child with their parent and that is not to their honor. Sefardim name a child after a grandparent because they don't think a mix-up with a grandparent is likely but Ashkenazim forbid that as well. The business of not naming after a living relative is simply an extension of that ban. So if somebody is named after a parent the parent is either dead, or the family has broken with tradition (that happened even in the old days), or there was some (gentile) legal reason for giving the same (gentile) name.
Incidentally, there is a custom of not marrying a person with the same name as a parent, or having the newlywed change their name. My daughter married a man whose mother had the same name. She didn't want to change her name so she and her husband changed their last name instead to prevent any mix-up. 
--
Yehuda Berman

The comment that names were repeated for successive children after an earlier one died applies to my Brown family of Edinburgh and Vishtinetz. My great grandparents were first cousins and in the 1870's they named their first two infants born in Edinburgh, Julius and George, after their respective fathers Jacob and Gershon. However, both boys died shortly after birth. They then had female twins whom they called Julia and Georgina. Georgina lived until she was 2 years old and Julia died at the aged of 25. They had another daughter who died at 17 but then better luck with three other children, including my grandfather.

Jill Whitehead, Surrey, UK

I read once that in Sephardic custom, the parents don't name babies after themselves (the baby's own parents).  They only name their babies after other living relatives.

I know Sephardi do that but, Eastern European Ashkenazi will only name after a deceased relative so the Angel of Death doesn't take the child.