Were there other "Herodotuses" during Herodotus's time? If not why exactly?

by CDWEBI

Basically, what I wrote in the title.

Why was there seemingly only one history writer during that time and area, named Herodotus? Was he the only one who was seemed prestigious enough to be preserved or was writing down history really something which nobody really thought of during that time?

Alkibiades415

There were many historians. We know of some of them by name only, and have fragments of others. Herodotos of Halicarnasus is known to you because, thanks to the Athenians and later medieval monks, his work was preserved through the millennia. The vast majority of works composed in the ancient world, history or otherwise, do not survive or have not yet been rediscovered. Some other Classical Greek historians:

Hekataios of Miletos: late 6th and early 5th century BCE. He wrote works about navigation and exploration, and also a "history" of unknown content. Only fragments survive.

Krattiops of Athens: late 5th or early 4th century BCE. We don't know very much about him, but papyri fragments of his work have been found and published. He picked up the historical narrative (from Thucydides) of Athenian history during and after the Peloponnesian War.

Antiochos of Syracuse: late 5th century. He wrote a history of Sicily from earliest times down to his own day. Only fragments survive.

Philistos: also from Syracuse, writing mostly in the early 4th century. He also wrote a lost history of Sicily.

Aretades of Knidos: wrote a history of Macedonia (does not survive).

Herakleides of Kyme: 4th century BCE; he wrote Persica, a history of Persia, only fragments of which survive. I very much wish more of this will be found some day.