With Upstate Medial University being the largest employer in Onondaga County, some workers are bound to share the same name. Meet Ashley Brown, Ashley Brown and Ashley Brown.

The brunette Ashley Brown is a nurse in the emergency department at the Community campus. She shares a birth year – 1985 – and a middle name – Marie – with the red-headed Ashley Brown who works in Upstate‘s dental clinic and attended Liverpool High School.

The blond Ashley Brown, born in 1987 and given the middle name Kristen, is a charge nurse in the intensive care unit at the Community campus. She shares a birth year -- 1985 -- and a middle name -- Marie -- with the redheaded Ashley Brown who works in Upstate's dental clinic and attended Liverpool High School.

The blond Ashley Brown, born in 1987, is a charge nurse in the intensive care unit at the Community campus. She and the emergency nurse were two years apart as they attended Lafayette High School. They both pursued nursing careers and eventually ended up at Upstate University Hospital. Both were pregnant when they appeared in the photo above.

The emergency nurse delivered her second son in August. The ICU nurse delivered her first baby, a boy, in November, and she was changing her last name to take her husband‘s: Buckton.

The Ashley Brown from the dental clinic has an 8-year-old daughter.

The Social Security Administration reports that Ashley was most popular as a girl‘s name in 2001, when 16,526 Ashleys were born in the United States. Ashley was the fourth most popular girl‘s name that year, and it remained in the top 10 through 2005.

The decade of the 1980s saw 352,160 Ashleys born -- behind only Jessicas, Jennifers and Amanda as most popular. At least 53 Ashleys were employed at Upstate in 2017 -- three with the last name Brown.

This article appears in the winter 2018 issue of Upstate Health magazine.