The history behind an exclusive but lesser known presidential club

When Joe Biden was sworn in as the country’s 46th president, he joined an exclusive but lesser known club of those who had come earlier.

Joe Biden’s full name is Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. He is one of 10 other commanders-in-chief throughout history, named after their fathers. Others in the group include James Madison Jr., Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Calvin Coolidge Jr.

Jeffrey Engel, founder and director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, told CBS News’ Dana Jacobson that he is not surprised that presidents don’t use the ‘junior’ distinction.

“I’m not surprised that presidents or any politician would choose not to call themselves junior. Because what’s the word junior but diminutive? It says you’re a little less, or at most a copy of something,” he said. “So we see presidents who spent most of their lives using junior, but when they wanted a public career on their own, they honestly wanted their own name, not to borrow someone else’s.”

The first president to wear the junior suffix was the second to hold the job: John Adams Jr.

There are plenty of club members in the modern era – including 38th President Gerald Ford who was twice named a junior. Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr., but his parents divorced. He would later change his name to honor his stepfather and became Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr.

The name of Ford’s successor is actually James Earl Carter Jr – but he changed that to Jimmy Carter during his political career.

Former President Barack Hussein Obama also bears his father’s name, but his parents chose to add the Roman numeral II instead of the suffix junior.

George W. Bush, son of George HW Bush, had long been known by family members as “ junior, ” though those different middle initials technically keep him out of the presidential junior club.

“There’s really no reason for George Bush 43 to call himself a junior, although of course people looked at the names and said they sounded the same,” Angel said. “He was called a junior so many times in his early part of his life.”