There is a discussion on this site which is defined by a principle of Conservation of Biblical Personalities, when the midrash or aggadeta would quote various persons under the same name. Rabbi Tzvi-Hirsch Chajes in his book "The Student's Guide through the Talmud", chapter XXI The Quoting of Various Persons Under One and the Same Name:
...The Rabbis had the definite principle in their himiletic interpretations of praising, so far as possible, the deeds of the virtuaous and of disparaging the doings of the wicked in every possible way. They further adopted as one of their methods that of calling different personages by one and the same name if they found them akin in any feature of their characters or activities or if they found similarity between any of their actions. Even if where there was only some resemblance in the names of different persons, they blended the two as one ...
Who defined this principle for midrashic literature and how is it related to the principle of R' Yose ben Chalaphta, a student of R' Akiva?
R' Yose's principle in midrash Seder Olam Rabba 1:2 is applied to timing of the events in Tanach:
לא בא (הכתוב) לסתום אלא לפרש
The Scripture did not come to hide, but to explain.
In other words, when an event is happening during a certain time interval as referred by a verse in Tanach, it must refer to either beginning or the end of the interval, same place, Seder Olam Rabba 1:2, towards the end:
Rabbi Yose said: Ever was a great prophet that he called his son Peleg ("split") "because in his days the earth was split" (Bereshis 10:25). You cannot say this happened when Peleg was born since his younger brother Yoqtan had 13 families as his descendants at the Language split. You cannot say that this happened during Peleg's middle life since the Scripture does not come to hide but to explain. Therefore, the verse must mean that the split occured during Peleg's last year of life.
