What about a HoH's, letting you store a count using the fruit as a key into a hash based on name, e.g. 
use Data::Dumper;

my %islanders;
while (<DATA>) {
        chomp;
        my ($key, $cnt, $fruit) = split / /;
        $key =~ s/://g;
        $islanders{$key}{$fruit} += $cnt;
}
print Dumper(\%islanders);

__DATA__
Gilligan: 1 coconut
Skipper: 3 coconuts
Gilligan: 1 banana
Ginger: 2 papayas
Professor: 3 coconuts
MaryAnn: 2 papayas

[download]
I think this approach could work equally as well? Yielding, ... 
$VAR1 = {
          'Ginger' => {
                        'papayas' => '2'
                      },
          'Gilligan' => {
                          'banana' => '1',
                          'coconut' => '1'
                        },
          'Skipper' => {
                         'coconuts' => '3'
                       },
          'MaryAnn' => {
                         'papayas' => '2'
                       },
          'Professor' => {
                           'coconuts' => '3'
                         }
        };

[download]

---
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Warning: Any code posted by tuxz0r is untested, unless otherwise stated, and is used at your own risk.

In reply to Re: hash with identical keys by tuxz0r
in thread hash with identical keys by props

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