Unusual similarity may raise a suspicion of qalb, an inversion in which names or links were transposed or copied twice. Yet the mere strangeness of a chain is not evidence that inversion occurred.
First gather its available routes. Compare each person’s teachers, students, and chronology, then ask whether the repeated pattern is historically plausible. If independent evidence confirms two distinct transmitters, the apparently repetitive chain should stand.
Application: identical names may belong to genuine separate links; an abridgment is justified only by evidence.