Have you ever Googled your own name?

[alarimer]

I just did and I was shocked. There are several people with my first and last name. The only difference is middle name, which wasn't always listed. Some are obviously not me: the architect and the person in politics. But there was one who was a member of a dance troupe with an objectionable name.

I did this because of a thread in GD about advice to young job seekers who use email addresses that are obscene or inappropriate. I didn't Google my email address. I don't have a MySpace account (although I used to). But I am a little worried about some potential employer Googling my real name and coming up with the previously mentioned dance troupe. I don't want them to mistake me for them but I don't know that there is much I can do about. "Um, could you change the name of your dance troupe to something I wouldn't mind being associated with? Just the name, thanks." Yeah, right.

I guess I am being silly. It's just I know how hard it is to be hired once you reach a certain age (and pretty any other time, actually).

[skygazer]

1. My name consistently comes up as an active and successful attorney

Which I don't mind a bit. :rofl:

My name isn't that common so there aren't a lot of matches.

[Swede]

2. My name is the same as a movie star's so like 10 million hits pop up.

Anonymity for me.

[alarimer]

4. Maybe that's the best I can hope for

That there are just too many other "Me"s that they will give up after a page or so.

[crispini]

3. Yeah, I have a unique name so I keep pretty close tabs on what is associated with me.

So far, it's just me. :D

[noamnety]

5. My name shows a bunch of rants

that sound like they were written by a feminist/socialist who has issues with the military, with FEMA, and with BushCo.

No clue why that is.

[Broken_Hero]

6. Wow...

I just googled my email address, and found an old GuestBook entry I posted to an old friend....wow, I didn't even know I wrote that....

[KitchenWitch]

7. I will only Google myself until I need glasses.

:P

[Mike03]

8. Too afraid to.

I've Googled my ex wife's name, and some ex girlfriends, but afterwards, I'm never happy that I have, so I've stopped doing it.

[ghostsofgiants]

9. Yep, my old deviantart page is the third result, haha.

[fizzgig]

10. many times

but i have an extremely common name (first middle and last, a lot of people with it), so it's tough to find me

[alarimer]

11. My name is a lot more common than I thought it was

I did this once a few years ago (must have been 2004). I found out that one was an official in the Montana GOP. I guess I should change my name. I can't have anyone thinking I am a Republican.

[laylah]

15. But the spelling of

your first name isn't common. I can't find ME anywhere but when I google my maiden name, there are all sorts of us out there.

[fizzgig]

17. first google page is half and half

but i'm glad you guys picked the spelling you did. i like it much better

[qb]

18. I love your avatar...

My mom collected anti-war buttons, posters, etc. when I was little. War is not healthy... was her favorite. Good memories.

[fizzgig]

40. and i finally get what you're saying

i can find me, but i have to use additional search words to do so

[Solon]

12. Only two hits, a druggie with an Oregon court record, the other a mention of my father...

Who shares my name.

[MissMillie]

13. there's a country singer w/ my name

she gets pretty good reviews

[KamaAina]

14. I have but one doppelganger

he is a banker in suburban OKC (different middle initial).

The truly weird thing is that a colleague here at work ran across him on some dating site! And it's not a common name at all... :tinfoilhat:

[otherlander]

16. I just googled my name

Only 3 results. All me.

[bluedigger]

19. I share a name with a rockstar.

Thousands of hits, hundreds of pages, you will never find me...(at least I never have...I don't have that kind of time! :rofl: )

[no name no slogan]

20. One of my "twins" is a champion rodeo rider

I own a website where my name is the URL (it's for promoting my music and web development stuff), so I'm always checking it on Google.

I found out I have a doppelganger in Wyoming who is a champion rodeo rider, another one who is a student with a DUI in Connecticut, and another one who is some sort of politician in Slovakia.

Strange.

[lightningandsnow]

21. My last name is quite unique, so only a few things come up,

all of them directly related to me.

There are a few petitions I signed. Also, this is wicked cool: there was an interview with the Dixie Chicks on ABC.com a few years back, and there was a way to submit questions you wanted the interviewers to ask. One of the ones that ended up being chosen was mine... which was amazing because they're my favorite band. And they answered my question!

[Ptah]

22. Yes, I found my namesake had been a mob enforcer in the early

days of Las Vegas.


:scared:

[qb]

23. I have a unique name...

I get a bunch of job-related references, and one to an atheist parenting group I was in 10 years ago.

[TK421]

24. I came up with a comedian, some mathematician, a journalist

and several others, then I just quit because there were so many hits on there

[stuntcat]

25. My name is also a small-time novelist

I'm SO glad because I'm scared for anyone to Google me and find anything x(

[DarkTirade]

26. Yes, and apparently I'm a college math professor.

And I didn't even know it. :P

Actually there's a facebook group of people who share my name... last time I checked there were four of us on there.

*edit* Huh... apparently I'm also a child gymnast and I'm involved in some litigation. I've been busy.

[madeline_con]

28. I'm a Professor of Art at the University of Illinois n/t

At least I'm not a serial killser, wanted in 3 states.

[DarkTirade]

34. They haven't found the bodies yet? :P

[electron_blue]

27. Yes. Googling my name shows me, yikes!

The curses of having an uncommon name.

[femmocrat]

29. Yes. Not too exciting, though.

I'm only listed under "faculty" on my school district's website. That's it!

[Silver Swan]

30. Yes

If I put in my first, middle, and last names in quotation marks, no hits come up.

If I put my first and last name in quotation marks, nearly 2000 hits come up, but only one of them actually refers to me.

If I put my name and the town I live in, it comes up my name, phone number, and a link to click a map of where I live.

[greendog]

31. I share a name with a handful of other guys. I won't be mistaken...

...for any of them.

A 'AA" Hockey Player.

A conservative pundit in Canada.

A Lutheran Minister.

A type designer.

[BlueIris]

32. I was shocked to find that a woman with my first (common) and last (ultra-rare) last name wrote

a book on needlepoint. My alter ego writes boring books! That has to be some kind of an omen.

[MorningGlow]

33. Frequently, to see how I rank on the Google

I have a freelance writing business, so I check to make sure it's ranking nicely on the Google. So far so good. Right now I've got three pages, all links to stuff I've written and one entry in a genealogy forum from several years ago. Many more pages if I ask to see duplicates.

[SoxFan]

35. Frequently

When you hold elected office, it's wise to see who is saying what about you.

Unfortunately, there's a kid who plays basketball for Brown University who shares my name and gets much better coverage than I do!

[kwassa]

36. I am highly successful in many different fields completely unrelated to one another

What more can anyone ask for?

[cutlassmama]

37. Yes. The person is a pornographic photographer in LA. No joke.

[FloridaJudy]

38. There are hundreds of "me"

That's what I get for having a common name. One is a porn star, and one is a brain surgeon, and - no - I'm not either.

[Kutjara]

39. I'm on death row.

At least, someone with my name is. It really rattled me when I saw that.

[cutlassmama]

42. And I thought the porn photographer was bad. Heh. I'd hate to have

your name. Sorry.

[Kutjara]

43. Fortunately, it's a fairly common name.

There are nearly 400,000 of me on Google. :)

[Capn Sunshine]

41. Yes

Usually the articles I wrote for DU are on page one along with my political incarnations and web activity related to the Democratic Party. If you Google my name with a particular private bank, you get my office inside line. But my name is surprisingly common. Lots of varied things and people. Once I found a MySpace Page dedicated to an image carved from a bar of soap with my name. THAT was pretty freaky

[TreasonousBastard]

44. Last time I did that around the..

fifth entry or so was me as "the biggest asshole on usenet." That'll teach me to use my real name when arguing online.

Now, there's an amazing number of people with my name floating around.

[XemaSab]

45. Yes. I am very boring.

However, there are people with my name who are eco-activists, wildlife photographers, Chinese ethnographers, and much, much more. :)

[krispos42]

46. My first and last name are fairly common, so I think I'm lost in the crowd!

I goggled my phone number once. Nothing came up.

And my email address does NOT begin, contain, or end with "krispos42", so that takes care of that.

[FunkyLeprechaun]

47. Yes

It's not a common name but I share it with a photographer. One of her photos is of John Edwards!

I played the google name a bit more... my mum (shares her name with someone who owns a horse farm)

My dad (Has a more common name so lots of hits with that)

My sister (by herself! No one else has her name)

Then I decided to google my relatives... my aunt with her married name, then I decided to put her maiden name in instead of her married name.

One of the results turned out to be my family tree. Someone had compiled a website in the hopes of meeting other people who belonged in the family tree. He had misspelled my mum's name (one letter short) which is why she didn't turn up in the results I had of her name. The same went for my aunt's married name (he had spelled it phonetically). I wasn't named on the family tree, just as Daughter 2 (I dunno why he didn't have me on there, but he said that he has my name on an updated version of the tree). I could NOT believe it! I found a cousin, I actually started to well up reading all the names on my family tree. Even has the wedding date of my great-great-great grandparents (August 30, 1831)... wow!

I now regularly keep in touch with my cousin (My great-grandfather and his grandfather were brothers).

[alarimer]

51. That's cool

The internet can be good or bad. I guess I was thinking of negative reasons to be concerned that my name is out there is cyberspace. I wouldn't want to be confused with a porn producer!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

48. I've come up a couple of times

A couple of letters to the editor I wrote are still on the net, a couple of city pictures I took and submitted to city-data.com, and I believe part of a column I wrote in college still exists somehow.

I have a very rare last name, but there is another person with my name who comes up on Google. Apparently, it was an newspaper interview of some guy with my name in Chicago who was concerned about a sex offender in his neighorhood. I guess it could be worse--my name could be the sex offender!

[NewJeffCT]

49. There is a music center in Ohio that bears my name

which is kind of flattering. I had thought my last name was pretty rare.

[sendero]

50. I have a very common name...

.. so google comes up with a boatload.

In addition, I never put myself on the web in a context that connects to my name.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

52. You're not being just silly...

I've been reading about how college-age people have caused problems for themselves by posting pictures of themselves puking during spring break, or leaving questionable messages on their Myspace accounts.

Anything you put on the internet has a very strong likelihood of being there forever. For the sake of your future career, be careful what you post.

[hisownpetard]

53. I found out from someone I was dating that, when he googled me, there were three other women

with the same name. One was a psychologist/therapist. One was a prize-winning
Australian sheep farmer, and one was a porn star.

It took him much longer to google the last one than the first one.

[AspenRose]

54. Yep...that's how I found out the government owed me money.

So I got lucky. :-)

[Coyote_Bandit]

55. I am

40 something and have changed the way I list my name on my resume partly because of Google. I now use only my first two initials and my last name. A headhunter I contacted once expressed surprise that I was not ethnic. Being strawberry blond and the palest of pale white I had not even considered that a potential issue in my employment. As a woman who had previously worked for a sexist jerk I was however concerned about gender discrimination. Using only initials and a last name seem to be the most acceptable and effective way to deal with these issues.

I have to say that when I googled my name I was surprised. I found a number of other folks that shared my name and they were from multiple ethnicities. One was a murder victim who was a single mother of five. Another had testified against a family member who was accused of murder. Amother testified in defense of a family member accused of murder. Another worked in Hollywood. Another had an interesting MySpace page. Another was a small business owner. Another was a preacher's kid. Another was very active in advocating for care and treatment of children that shared the same handicap as her own child. Another was a professor. More than one had been involved in prolonged non claim related insurance disputes. Another was a rape investigator. Another was a church worker. Another was athletic. There were a couple that were involved in politics and community service organizations. And then there was me - work related information complete with a photo from a position I held some six years ago.

I have to say that using only my initials and last name does not address all my concerns in seeking employment. When I search google using this term I still find a wide variety of other incarnations of my moniker.