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Be careful with that - my friends enjoy an automatic level of anonymity even if they publish something under their real names, but my real name is rare enough t

Be careful with that - my friends enjoy an automatic level of anonymity even if they publish something under their real names, but my real name is rare enough that it points directly to me and me alone on Google results.

frobozz 7y ago
My real name is not uncommon. Many years ago, I decided to use it for professional posts on the web in order to build an online presence. There were no significant search results for my name at the time. Shortly after that, two people (an actor and a prominent academic) with the same name completely overtook me.
ghaff 7y ago
The two extremes for the US are probably John Smith and something absolutely unique. Each has their pros and cons. (Although my name isn't obviously unusual, it's actually more or less Internet unique and, at a minimum, I have a way bigger footprint than anyone else.) ADDED: Personally it's probably advantageous to me to have a unique online identity. But it means I can't hide behind an excuse that "It must have been one of the other $NAMES that you read about." And I assume such conflicts could get a resume tossed pretty quickly by a recruiter doing a quick search. The worst alternative is to have a name conflict who might be plausibly you based on location etc. where the other is a criminal, etc. I went to school with someone who shared a name with someone in NYC who was in very public and messy legal problems. He literally got death threats left on his (pre-Web) telephone.
Ambroos 7y ago
I've just embraced it. My real first name (Ambroos) is usually my username and I'm easy to Google with just my first name as a result.
vidarh 7y ago
As far as I know my name is globally unique. Feature of a rare last name (two farmers in two different parts of Norway independently intentionally picked the same misspelling of a more common name to set themselves apart from nearby farms about 200 years ago; only descendants of those two have my last name, and half of them are related to me) coupled with a relatively rare first name. Annoying when it comes to anonymity, but sometimes it's nice being able to be identified by name alone.
- checktheorder 7y ago
  >Annoying when it comes to anonymity, but sometimes it's nice being able to be identified by name alone. I love having a modern-day superpower: online search anonymity. I have one of the most common firstname/lastname combos in the western world. I don't seen to show up on Google at all, even if you include my middle name. The last time I tried the "search for yourself" experiment I got to about page 200 of Google results that weren't actually me before I gave up. Combine that with my avoidance of social media, and it's like I'm off-the-grid without actually having to be off-the-grid.

frobozz 7y ago

My real name is not uncommon. Many years ago, I decided to use it for professional posts on the web in order to build an online presence. There were no significant search results for my name at the time. Shortly after that, two people (an actor and a prominent academic) with the same name completely overtook me.

ghaff 7y ago

The two extremes for the US are probably John Smith and something absolutely unique. Each has their pros and cons. (Although my name isn't obviously unusual, it's actually more or less Internet unique and, at a minimum, I have a way bigger footprint than anyone else.) ADDED: Personally it's probably advantageous to me to have a unique online identity. But it means I can't hide behind an excuse that "It must have been one of the other $NAMES that you read about." And I assume such conflicts could get a resume tossed pretty quickly by a recruiter doing a quick search. The worst alternative is to have a name conflict who might be plausibly you based on location etc. where the other is a criminal, etc. I went to school with someone who shared a name with someone in NYC who was in very public and messy legal problems. He literally got death threats left on his (pre-Web) telephone.

Ambroos 7y ago

I've just embraced it. My real first name (Ambroos) is usually my username and I'm easy to Google with just my first name as a result.

vidarh 7y ago

As far as I know my name is globally unique. Feature of a rare last name (two farmers in two different parts of Norway independently intentionally picked the same misspelling of a more common name to set themselves apart from nearby farms about 200 years ago; only descendants of those two have my last name, and half of them are related to me) coupled with a relatively rare first name. Annoying when it comes to anonymity, but sometimes it's nice being able to be identified by name alone.

checktheorder 7y ago
>Annoying when it comes to anonymity, but sometimes it's nice being able to be identified by name alone. I love having a modern-day superpower: online search anonymity. I have one of the most common firstname/lastname combos in the western world. I don't seen to show up on Google at all, even if you include my middle name. The last time I tried the "search for yourself" experiment I got to about page 200 of Google results that weren't actually me before I gave up. Combine that with my avoidance of social media, and it's like I'm off-the-grid without actually having to be off-the-grid.