All my life I've been a fan of Romeo Montague. I loved him for being deep, poetic and just a very good character. Then when I read Hamlet, I was mesmerized, because I met a character who to me seemed like Romeo on steroids. Although the plays are worlds apart in terms of themes and plot, the two main characters always struck me as startlingly similar people in different situations. However, whenever I brought this up to anyone as well versed as I in the plays or better so, they would suddenly adopt a very pretentious attitude and tell me no, no the characters are not "the same guy", but they never told me why. So in my opinion, Hamlet and Romeo are at most the same character recycled, and at least eerily similar: because of shared traits, similar actions, and identical happenings in their lives.
To be fair, several of Shakespeare's characters may share characteristics in order to conform to genre or generate the plot. For instance, the nurse in Romeo and Juliet and Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream are both characters intended to add humor and support their plays as partial comedies. However, Romeo and Hamlet share more than one trait and exist outside of the limit of Shakespeare's "recurring figures".
Both of them are dramatic and verbose. They also have a way with words and often engage in pun-based banter with their friends - although Hamlet is more mean spirited in this. As for friends, have a "sensible" companion to be sane and good in contrast: Benvolio is to Romeo as Horatio is to Hamlet. Last of all, and more darkly, both characters have considered or committed suicide.
On the subject of suicide, both Romeo and Hamlet's lovers met their deaths in this manner. And although affections for their lovers were different (Romeo loved Juliet, Hamlet was indifferent to Ophelia), similar affairs guide their relationships. Notably, both male main characters accidentally kill a family member of their lover. Also, Ophelia and Juliet share some similarities but this can be chalked up to role of women at the time, meaning the way they were socially expected to act (meek, controlled by father, marrying young). In the end, neither couple is married or happy: in fact they all end up dead, with Hamlet, Romeo and others discovered dead or dying by other characters who will survive them and live to tell the tale.
