MORGAN PARK — Finnegan Fitzpatrick has played against Finnegan Fitzpatrick twice this year in the Little League at Kennedy Park.
The season series is tied between the two boys from Morgan Park with the same name.
"We did not anticipate running into another Finnegan Fitzpatrick," said Mike Fitzpatrick, the father of the 8-year-old boy named Finnegan who plays for the Hoosiers and attends St. John Fisher Elementary School in West Beverly,
The other Finnegan Fitzpatrick, 6, plays for the Tarheels and attends Clissold Elementary School in Morgan Park.
Besides the two boys with the exact same name, there are three other boys who also go by "Finn" in the league made up of about 50 first- and second-grade boys from the neighborhood.
Finegan McDonough spells his name with only "N" and plays for the Irish. Meanwhile, Fintan McGee also plays for the Tarheels, and Finnbhar Kelly plays for the Hoosiers, according to the league roster.
"It's become a popular name," Mike Fitzpatrick said of the shortened version of his eldest son's name.
The popularity of the name Finnegan in the United States has steadily increased from 2005-2015, according to data compiled by the Social Security Administration.
The heavily Irish name ranked No. 405 in 2015, up from No. 888 just a decade earlier, the statistics show.
Danielle Fitzpatrick said she liked the name Finnegan for her son because it was popular at the time. She and her husband, Sean, both wrote five names for a boy and five names for a girl on separate sheets of paper before their firstborn child arrived.
The name that matched on both lists for a baby boy was Finnegan, said Danielle Fitzpatrick, adding that her son also mostly goes by Finn.
"He knows when he is in trouble when I call for Finnegan," she said.
Mike Fitzpatrick said he and his wife, Claire, moved to Morgan Park from the West Loop about a year ago. They purposely chose Irish names for their two sons. In fact, Finnegan's six-year-old brother is named Seamus.
Just as they were settling in, Mike Fitzpatrick took the boys to a nearby park. Another parent was there too and called out to her son — also named Seamus.
"I had never heard of another Seamus," he said. "I thought, 'We are in the right neighborhood.'"
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