> but the fact that a two records can't share field names

That is awkward sometimes yes. Record fields are functions, and you can't have two functions with the same name in the same namespace.

You can, however, use namespaces to import two separate modules with conflicting names. It does mean you have to define the two different records in two different modules.

If, you want different records to have common fields because they are conceptually related, you probably want to use type classes.