[ivolimmen]

Even with people that are not famous it can be difficult. My wife knows three people with the same name. So when I ask with whom are you going out she needs to add the city to make me understand.

[lazide]

Part of why in many times, ‘of x’ was a common ‘surname’. Also, profession - basically ‘Bob the Smith’, ‘John the Baker’, etc.

A lot of places (India, Brazil) still use one of your parents on official documents to disambiguate (Bob Smith, son of John (or Jill) Smith from Smithville).