Why Are There So Many Of Me?
Last night, in a bit of vainglory, I entered my own name into Google search just to see what came up. Since I have now had some technical articles regarding my chosen craft of software development published on an industry news-site, I wanted to see if my fame (and fortune?) were increasing. While my name did come up near the top, I also saw some distressing stuff. There were lots of other hits for people with my name that weren't me. One was a ball-player, another a doctor, etc. I went to the second page and things didn't improve.
Who are these people? Why did their parents give them my name? Given my current age, I'm most likely older than them -- don't I get some preference for having been there first? The first thing that came to mind was the Schwarzenegger movie, "The Sixth Day". In it, he plays a character who is cloned -- the premise of the movie is that the main Schwarzenegger character is the original, and the other Schwarzenegger is the clone. Which of course turns out to be false. Imagine, as the movie wants you to consider, his surprise and dismay when he discovers HE is the clone. And then I thought of the Micheal Keaton movie, the titile of which escapes me, where he is cloned, his clone is cloned, the clone's clone is cloned, etc. It was funny, but disturbing. Which is somewhat how I felt last night.
So what's going on here? Up until about 4 years ago, if you had a reasonably distinctive name (not say, Bill, Bob, or John -- sorry to any of you out there) you could be assured of your relative uniqueness in your own little universe. The Internet and Search Engines have changed that. There are people with my name all over the fershluginer place! I'm stuck. I'm not about to go change my name at this stage. But we all crave some form of uniqueness in our lives -- and a name used to be part of the distinction. What are parents going to do now? Will new parents start doing searches on the internet to see how many times their proposed name for their future offspring shows up in a search? "Let's see, 'Robert K. Jones' shows 17 million hits. Let's try 'Balthazar_Lord_of_Darkness'. Hmm, nothing yet. Honey! What do you think of "Balthazar_Lord_of_Darkness'?" When the Hippie movement was taking off, parents started naming their kids things like "Rainbow", "Moonbeam", and "Dweezil". Will new parents start using screen names? Will the "@" symbol be part of new names? "CleverBoy@IAmWhoIAm.com".
I can't wait to see whether this goes anywhere! Now that I think about it, I've always liked "Balthazar" -- just not the Lord_of_Darkness part. Mabe I'll reconsider that part about not changing now. Let me see how many times "Balthazar" shows up. Hmm, almost 2 million times -- nope. I'm part Scottish, so let's try "Balthazar deVasquez McTavish". No hits whatsoever! Let's do it!
Who are these people? Why did their parents give them my name? Given my current age, I'm most likely older than them -- don't I get some preference for having been there first? The first thing that came to mind was the Schwarzenegger movie, "The Sixth Day". In it, he plays a character who is cloned -- the premise of the movie is that the main Schwarzenegger character is the original, and the other Schwarzenegger is the clone. Which of course turns out to be false. Imagine, as the movie wants you to consider, his surprise and dismay when he discovers HE is the clone. And then I thought of the Micheal Keaton movie, the titile of which escapes me, where he is cloned, his clone is cloned, the clone's clone is cloned, etc. It was funny, but disturbing. Which is somewhat how I felt last night.
So what's going on here? Up until about 4 years ago, if you had a reasonably distinctive name (not say, Bill, Bob, or John -- sorry to any of you out there) you could be assured of your relative uniqueness in your own little universe. The Internet and Search Engines have changed that. There are people with my name all over the fershluginer place! I'm stuck. I'm not about to go change my name at this stage. But we all crave some form of uniqueness in our lives -- and a name used to be part of the distinction. What are parents going to do now? Will new parents start doing searches on the internet to see how many times their proposed name for their future offspring shows up in a search? "Let's see, 'Robert K. Jones' shows 17 million hits. Let's try 'Balthazar_Lord_of_Darkness'. Hmm, nothing yet. Honey! What do you think of "Balthazar_Lord_of_Darkness'?" When the Hippie movement was taking off, parents started naming their kids things like "Rainbow", "Moonbeam", and "Dweezil". Will new parents start using screen names? Will the "@" symbol be part of new names? "CleverBoy@IAmWhoIAm.com".
I can't wait to see whether this goes anywhere! Now that I think about it, I've always liked "Balthazar" -- just not the Lord_of_Darkness part. Mabe I'll reconsider that part about not changing now. Let me see how many times "Balthazar" shows up. Hmm, almost 2 million times -- nope. I'm part Scottish, so let's try "Balthazar deVasquez McTavish". No hits whatsoever! Let's do it!
posted by TheCleverCoder | 10:01 AM
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