Watched a film featuring Robert Downey Jr recently.
Presumably, his father is called Robert Downey Sr and they use the appropriate title suffix to avoid confusion.

However, at the end of the film, in the credits, was someone who’s job was “Driver for Mr Downey Jr”.

Now, most men have the same surname as their father and don’t feel the need to identify themselves as “Mr xxxx Jr”
As far as I’m aware, Robert Downey Sr played no part in the film, so there was no risk of confusion over which Mr Downey the driver was driving for.

So why the need to identify him as Jr ?

It’s effectively a trademark for him I suppose as it defines his brand.

May be equity rules as there may be another Robert Downey??
May be another person called Downey in the industry or that film?

I suspect you could drop some of your name and we would still know who you are whilst we are moaning about names 😉

I think you’ll find that Americans have a habit of sons being given the father’s name, with Jr added to avoid confusion, the Jr becomes part of the person’s name, regardless of whether the father is alive or dead, also he will be Equity registered with that name, all film/ acting credits reflecting that. I can’t say that it’s something I’ve ever really spent too much time thinking about; it’s a bloke’s name, so what?

The Sr is also an actor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Downey,_Sr.#Filmography

That f@*$#s that thread then. 😉 😆

Case closed.

Aside from equity stuff the titles and credits are effectively legal documents. How cast and crew are credited in them is defined by your contract so if he signed as R D jr then that’s how his name appears. That’s why crew in particular often have a nickname in inverted commas as they have to be credited by their legal name even if that’s not the name they are known by.

Not withstanding the legal aspect a colleague of mine’s dog is in the crew credits of a feature film we both worked on. He was on the call sheet at ‘forth assistant director’ but in the credits as ‘unit dog’.