A decade to a decade and a half ago, I setup an “as it happens” Google Alert for my first and last name. As a result, every once in a while I get an email about someone with my name who’s doing much better than I am.

I have what I thought was a fairly unique name, but it turns out the combination of my first and last name is culturally common, and so while there aren’t many people with my last name, the ones that do have it often share my first name. I learned this when I looked myself up as a kid. I found a lot of us on Facebook and started a group. It was still going strong when I deleted my Facebook account.

Edit: I don’t want to dox myself, but my name is Fartin McFartface, however my friends call me Farty.

I have run into a couple people with the exact same name as me. A couple of us follow each other on Instagram.

meow

The only people who have my name are:

1: A crackpot free energy antigravity mad scientist/inventor 2: A football player 3: The worst IT technician in the state of Texas

At various times in my life I have been mistaken for 1 and 3.

I was invited to (and attended) the LENREW conference in Maryland as a teenager thanks to #1, and I lost out on several pay raises and promotions (and was asked to, on my own time and dime, to drive several thousand miles round trip to Texas to pick up a mis-shipped laptop, which I declined to do) thanks to #3.

Back when Facebook was cool, I searched for other people that had the same name as me and friended them. It was good. There were like 60 of us.

Over time it became clear that some of them were awful so I unfriended them. Most stopped posting. Now it’s just one other guy. He’s leading a pretty good life. It’s nice to see.