Having the name Mark Plotkin gets downright confusing for three men prominent in their very different fields who share the name and live in Washington.

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Mix-ups in telephone calls and bills are common for lawyer Mark E. Plotkin, political commentator Mark L. Plotkin and ethnobotanist Mark J. Plotkin, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The newspaper got all three of them together for lunch and they recounted numerous cases where they were confused for one another.

The lawyer said he gets blamed for remarks made by the political commentator, the ethnobiologist gets calls asking for political comment and the commentator gets calls looking for help in a tropical rain forest.

Curiously, there was a fourth Mark Plotkin in Washington but the celebrity status of the name forced him to move, the Post said. Mark A. Plotkin moved to Miami, saying he was embarrassed to be "just" a librarian at the U.S. Supreme Court.

"I felt like such a failure in Washington with such a name," Mark A. Plotkin said from his post at the University of Miami's law library.