It's common for an investor to have several IRA accounts. 

They may be funding a Roth, Traditional or rolling money from their old employer into a Rollover IRA.  Often, they will have these accounts spread between banks, or different brokerage or mutual fund companies.   Most IRA providers let you add different beneficiaries on each of these accounts.  It makes sense- you may want to give these IRA accounts to different individuals, charities or family members.

Looks like Vanguard is requiring investors to have the same beneficiary on their IRA accounts.

FinancialPlanning.com provides details on Vanguard's beneficiary change.

Vanguard is requiring customers to have the same beneficiary noted on all their IRA accounts, and if not changed soon, the mutual fund giant will do it for them, according to Forbes.

Vanguard sent out letters to 170,000 customers who had different beneficiaries on their multiple IRA accounts, stating they have to have identical beneficiaries for IRAs holding money rolled over from employer pension plans, traditional IRAs, both pretax and aftertax, and Roth IRAs.