Killing multiple GNU screen sessions with the same name

Try using screen -RR.

Example:

$ screen -ls
There are screens on:
    5958.pts-3.sys01    (08/26/2010 11:40:43 PM)    (Detached)
    5850.pts-1.sys01    (08/26/2010 11:40:35 PM)    (Detached)
2 Sockets in /var/run/screen/S-sdn.

Note that screen 5958 is the youngest. Using screen -RR connects to screen 5958. The -RR options is somewhat further explained in the documentation for -d -RR.

   -d -RR  Reattach a session and if necessary detach or  create  it.  Use
           the first session if more than one session is available.

Another trick I often use is to use -S to give the screen a tag/label. Then you can reattach using that tag without having to remember what was happening in each screen if the list gets unwieldy.

Example (Launch screens for vim and curl):

$ screen -dm -S curl
$ screen -dm -S vim 
$ screen -list

There are screens on:  
    11292.vim       (08/27/2010 12:02:53 AM)        (Detached)
    11273.curl      (08/27/2010 12:01:42 AM)        (Detached)

Note: The -dm option was just used to start a detached screen

And then, at a later date, you can easily reconnect using the tag curl.

# screen -R curl

You can name a session when starting it with the -S name option. From within a running screen, you can change it by typing

Ctrl+A,: followed by sessionname name⁽¹⁾.

You can view running screen sessions with screen -ls, and connect to one by name with

screen -xS name

_{(1):name is and an arbitrary string which will become the new session name. If the session name contains whitespace, quote it with single or double quotes.}

Within a single screen session, you can also name each window. Do this by typing Ctrl+A, A then the name you want. You can view an interactive list of named windows by typing Ctrl+A, ", and select the one you want to switch to from that list.

Naming both screens and terminals within screens is really helpful for remembering what they are and why you started them in the first place.