I kinda think John Silver is not Silver’s name. He introduces himself as a cook and the ship’s journals probably had the crew’s names written down like: “John Silver, cook”. So Silver took the guy’s name. Of course, it’s possible that he never claimed that he worked on that ship as a cook, but merely that he has cooking skills that nobody knew about and John Silver is his real name.

Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit, Anon, if the original John Silver died in scene 1 of episode 1 and the guy we followed through season 4 was named, oh, idk – Solomon Little, at a guess. I’d be willing to lay good money that whatever that man’s name is, it’s not John Silver. I mean – he’s in the galley when they find him. There’s only one good reason for anyone to be down there when pirates attack, and a merchant ship isn’t going to carry more than one cook at a time. We’re not talking about a ship that would have a lot of men to feed. That means, by necessity, Silver claiming to be the cook kind of knocks the other guy out of his actual function, and since the ship’s log would in fact list “John Silver, cook”… yeah. RIP John Silver, we never actually knew ye.