Gaten Matarazzo has met countless fans, which probably makes the many faces he sees and names he hears difficult to remember.

Except, of course, the one also called Gaten.

Matarazzo, a 22-year-old actor who plays Dustin on the hit Netflix series “Stranger Things,” last weekend met Gaten Dollarhyde, a one-year-old boy from Kentucky who bears his name.

Hundreds of fans lined up to take photos with Matarazzo on Sunday at Epic Con’s The Upside Down, a fan convention in Georgia dedicated to the show. At the end of the line were Jacob and Cristy Dollarhyde, super fans who made the six-plus hour trip so Gaten could meet Gaten.

“I think it’s something that, even for (Matarazzo), it’s going to be hard to forget that moment,” Jacob said. “Being an inspiration for someone to name their child after him, for him I think it was like, ‘Oh, wow! I had that impact on someone that now there is another Gaten in the world.’”

There were other names that Jacob and Cristy wrote on a list for consideration; no, it wasn’t Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Will or Eleven. But it was Gaten, the name of the actor who played their favorite character on the show and who they said showed kindness and respect when the cameras were off, that remained at the top.

“We just agreed on it from the beginning,” Cristy said. “So, we just followed it. “We really loved it and we really liked Gaten as a person in general.”

It was almost two years ago that Jacob and Cristy, who were six months pregnant at the time, met Matarazzo. They drove to Pittsburgh, where he was attending a fan convention to tell him that their son would be named after him.

“He lit up instantly,” Jacob said. “The glow was real and he was very excited. He said, ‘Really? Aren’t you kidding? And he said, ‘I’ve never met another Gaten besides my father.'”

“He was the first person we told,” Cristy added. “So, it was very special in that sense because we wanted him to be the first person to know that our son was going to have his name. His overall reaction let me know that I made the right decision in naming our son that because I was really happy about that. I was surprised. It was sweet.”

Matarazzo then signed an autograph for his future namesake. “To Gaten,” he wrote at the top, signing his name at the bottom. She turned the photo over and added a message on the back that included: “I just can’t wait to meet you.”

Matarazzo hugged Jacob and Cristy before leaving.

“He told us, ‘Please, when he’s born, as soon as you can meet me at a convention, I’d love to meet him,’” Jacob said. “And we made him a promise that we would find him.”

And they kept it. It just took a little longer than expected.

Gaten was born in March 2023 and joined older siblings Grayson and Emma. He wouldn’t meet the man he was named after until he was 19 months old. While waiting for Matarazzo to make a local appearance, Jacob and Cristy took their son to meet other members of the “Stranger Things” cast.

They soon learned that “Baby Gaten” already had a reputation among the cast and crew.

When they met Caleb McLaughlin, who plays Lucas, he asked to take a video of Gaten and sent it to Matarazzo. When they met Gabriella Pizzolo, who plays Suzie, Dustin’s girlfriend, she asked to hug Gaten and take a photo with him. When they met Millie Bobby Brown, the show’s star who plays Eleven, she yelled, ‘Is that Baby Gaten?!’

“Even she knew it!” Jacob said. “She grabbed her belly right before we took a photo. Even little things like that from each of the cast members, it just lets you know that it’s something Gaten was excited about because he went and told these guys he works with that there’s a Baby Gaten.”

Then Gaten himself met Gaten.

With the filming of the last season of “Stranger Things”, Epic Contras met 18 current and former cast members at the convention. Fans lined up at Jackson, Georgia, the filming site of the Hawkins, Indiana location, to get autographs, take photos and show-themed meet and greets with their favorite cast members.

That included Jacob, Cristy and Gaten, who were wearing a “Super Gaten” t-shirt from their first Super Mario-themed birthday party.

Jacob entered the closed photo shop and approached Matarazzo first, holding the note he wrote to Gaten before he was born.

“He squinted for a moment and before long he said, ‘I wrote this,’” Jacob said. “There was a lot of emotion in his voice. Then he said, ‘Is he here?’ His voice was a little cracked and I said, ‘Yeah, man, he’s here.'”

Then Baby Gaten came in, holding Cristy’s hand. Matarazzo knelt on the floor to chat and play with the first non-relative named Gaten he met. The two played with a Dustin stuffed animal before posing for a photo together.

Epic Cons/Jacob Dollarhyde

“It was like I made him a new little friend,” Jacob said. “And it seemed like our son was really enjoying his little one-year-old self.”

Cristy added: “It was very emotional. Seeing Gaten light up when he saw our son was everything I could have imagined and more.”

Matarazzo thanked Jacob and Cristy for naming his son after him and told them it means a lot to him.

“He said, ‘Would you bring him to meet me again?’ I would like to see him grow,’” Jacob said. “And we want you to share the stages of Gaten’s life.”

Gaten then said goodbye to Gaten, capping an experience that, like the name they share, will never be forgotten.

“We love the uniqueness of the Gaten name, along with the fact that there is a genuine man associated with it,” Jacob said. “I’ve been to a lot of conventions and met a lot of people, and if I could do it all over again, there’s one person I would name my son after, and that’s Gaten Matarazzo.”