"pidof namecoind" shows many many processes running?

[georgem]

Hello everybody.

I am working on two projects. One is a general altcoin overview site, the other is a namecoin project, kinda like a bitdomain-explorer.

So I am installing all those daemons on my ubuntu linux server (has about 24 gigs of ram) and so far so good.
I compile all the daemons from sourcecode and let cronjobs put their data out in database that I can later access.

Now I realized today that while most daemons have only one process running, say if I type "pidof bitcoind" I get one number...

...but with namecoind I always get many processes listed when I do a "pidof namecoind"... like literarily dozens of numbers.
It starts with one process, but the longer I let namecoind run the more processes it has.

What does this mean? Does namecoind clog up my memory and cpu?

I have now observed all the 50 (!) daemons I have since installed on this server, and all seem to work fine.
It's mostly namecoind and infintecoind that are opening up new processes all the time.
If I kill those two, all the other daemons run stable for days, and only need casual stopping and restarting... (for whatever reason)

Has anyone made similar experiences?

[Carajillu]

Are you mining? It would explain it though

[georgem]

no, it's a webserver. All daemons are gen=0

cpu is not so much used at the moment, but ram is completely full.