He left his wife Patty and his two sons, Skipper Smith and Whitey Smith . The family knew who Skipper and Whitey are, but no one else does. Especially someone researching the family dozen's of years later. Unless you happen to discover that there were only two sons. Then you can almost bet that Skipper is the older son and Whitey is the younger son.
Families tend to relate things from oldest to the youngest.
The second variation on this name issue is when there is a son that is a Junior and everyone called him by his middle name. Be aware of these anomalies when conducting your search. Also remember that an obituary reports where the person died and not necessarily where they had residence. Their residence may be someplace besides the place of death, especially if they were taken to a hospital in a nearby town. This makes Bentonville the actual Place of Death even though he lived in Johnstonville so the death certificate will show Bentonville, not Johnstonville.