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Can I use the same title for a thesis and a co-advisor paper?

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No, I do not think it is generally a good idea to use a title for your work that has already been used before. Main reason would be that it makes it both publications harder to search for, and allows for mistakes. Just come up with a slightly different title of your own.

The only exception I see is for two publications that are in some sense the same work, such as the conference publication, journal publication, and possible arxiv preprint of one and the same paper. Some discussion can be had here about when it is still "the same paper", since generally these 3 versions will differ somewhat, but that is not relevant to your case.

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    +1 I'd avoid the same name for conference and journal versions, since Google Scholar (and presumably other indexes) can't yet cope. For preprints and published versions, sure. Except when the preprint is longer (e.g., contains proofs), then it's perhaps worth tagging on "(full version)", or something, to help indexes differentiate.
    – user2768
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 10:36
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    @user2768 It is very common in my field to keep the same title and hence I do. It makes it easier to find out "what happened" to a conference publication (never published in a journal can be a bad sign, sometimes). Google scholar seems to manage ok, though I may have had to make some manual changes. In my case it in the end only lists the journal version, which has all (well, as far as I know) citations pointing to it (also those of the conference and preprint).
    – user53923
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 11:27
  • In my case it...only lists the journal version, which has all...citations pointing to it This is the issue I was referring to. It seems preferable that two publications are identifiable. Ultimately, a journal version is different from a conference version, so extending the title makes sense. Keeping them similar allows for discovery of what happened. Equally, using "(journal version)" or "(extended version)" would achieve that. It is very common in my field to keep the same title Perhaps that's a historic tradition, everything has changed, repeatedly, since the internet went big.
    – user2768
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 13:57
  • @user2768 Given the number of mistakes google scholar (no experience with other services that count citations) makes in finding publications and citations (even ignoring duplicate paper titles), its only use to me is to get a basic overview of publications and citation count. For that, combining citations of all versions of the "same" paper is fine by me. But indeed, this is something to keep in mind if you decide to re-use the same title (my master's thesis had the same title as the conference version, which is problematic since they don't have the same authors. Do not recommend.)
    – user53923
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 14:21

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