I was talking to my friend about how Oda likes to name and base pirates in One Piece after real-world pirates. I have always thought that Gold Roger was based on the real-world pirate Oliver Levasseur, but my friend thought that he was based on the pirate who was considered the pirate king in the real-world, Henry Avery.
I decided to research a bit about Avery after this and I found out that his crew used to refer to him as Long Ben or Benjamin Bridgeman which is extremely similar to Ben Beckman of the red-haired pirates.
Is it just a coincidence or am I on to something?