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Couple choses baby name because it Googles well
Filed under: Your Pregnancy, Gadgets
Who has Googled themselves? Everyone, right? I have to admit, I felt a special sense of pride when, after Googling myself, I appeared as the top entry for my name . This is incredibly dorky, but can also have professional -- even financial ramifications.
For instance, because of the unique spelling of my first name, I often share search results with a porn director, which is always an awkward opener when I apply for jobs as a theatre director -- especially at universities. "Um, no, not that Jonathon Morgan, he makes movies. Dirty movies. I swear I'm not trying to lure your acting students into smut films."
And worse, what if your name doesn't show up at all? Seems innocuous, but in the case of Abigail Wilson, it means potential employers get suspicious because they can't find the publications she listed on her resume when they search for them online. As it turns out, Abigail Wilson is a very common name, and her work gets lost in the thousands of other search results.
So, when it came time to name her first baby, Abigail Googled every name she and her husband considered -- just to make sure whatever they chose would have a prominent placement in search engines.
At first this seems like odd criteria for choosing a baby name, but when you consider that 7% percent of all searches are for a person's name, and more than 80% of executive recruiters say they use search engines to learn more about job candidates, it starts to seem important that you're visible on the Internet.
Sorry Mr. Smith, it's too late for your son, John. He's doomed to a life of online anonymity. However, maybe next time you should consider something more exotic -- the kid's career might just depend on it.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
5-08-2007 @ 3:16PM
Uncle Roger said...That's an added benefit to my rather unique last name. Mind you, a quick search will reveal what an absolute wacko I am, but at least my kids will be easily found.
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5-08-2007 @ 6:42PM
Dhalver Xeno said...The problem is the internet isn't static. What googles "good" today may not be good tomorrow ... the year after ... or 5 years down the road.
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5-08-2007 @ 4:07PM
Jenny said...I did google my kids' names, but only to make sure that they weren't in "news of the weird" somewhere (or a porn director). I actually enjoy my internet anonymity; my name is common enough that no one will ever find me through google. There is a downside to being "searchable." Many things you'd rather forget loiter out there on the internet for years. And if your name is very obscure, a search can lead to discussions of you rather than things you've created. Or, as happened with a friend's child, a "friend" could type your full name into the comments of your MySpace page and suddenly it is searchable when you thought it was anonymous. In your later years being searchable could be a professional asset; in your early years it could be a liability.
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5-08-2007 @ 4:31PM
rebecca Biernesser said...lol, I have actually never tried to google my name, and thought ohh lets try it....know what I pulled up? Just about every post I have posted on this site..too funny....I'm just glad that's all that pulled up...lol
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5-08-2007 @ 7:23PM
brent said...Mine comes right up if you google my name... lots and lots of stuff on the first page linked off my name, including Weblog comments.
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5-08-2007 @ 8:01PM
Dina said...It's funny-- the combination of my first and last name is very uncommon. However, the few people out there I share both names with happen to be fairly prominent-- two are members of popular bands and active in the indie music scene, and one is a Hollywood script director with several high-profile movies to her name. I find it awesome and yet somewhat hard to live up to. ;-)
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5-08-2007 @ 11:51PM
SKL said...I have a Japanese client who googled my name for some reason. He was very impressed to find out about my activities on charitable boards. I guess this is kinda cool, since it would never do to brag directly about your extracurricular activities, though they may be impressive.
One thing that has been out there for years is a foreign-language translation of a toy tag (telling facts about a certain kind of animal), with me listed as the author. That is pretty funny - I wrote a bunch of those when I was wearing many hats, including product development, for a toy company, 15 years ago. It's a copyright infringement but I think it's kinda cool that it's out there.
One downside of name googling is that I have an ex who is very vindictive, and I don't want him to know what's going on in my life - he might try to screw things up if he could. He is the type to google my name just to keep tabs on me. So I google myself periodically just to confirm that there's nothing out there I wouldn't want him to know.
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5-09-2007 @ 11:37AM
Jessica said...Jonathon, how is your name spelled uniquely? How is it spelled otherwise?
Just curious, I always took it for a normal spelling.
I agree with above poster that their reasoning was not very sound b/c the internet is not static. Who knows what will be on the internet by the time their child is on the job market.
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5-09-2007 @ 11:41AM
Jonathon said...Most people spell it "Jonathan"
And I also agree, who knows what names will be popular in 5 years, or 10 years.
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6-20-2007 @ 2:26PM
Kathleen said...We were considering Elestrin for our newest daughter till I googled it and found out it was the name of a new menopause medicine that is applied straight to your female parts.
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