I share a name with a very famous professional athlete. I don’t even think about it usually but as soon as I have to give my name to someone I can pretty much count on some remark about the athlete by the same name.
I’ve dealt with this in many ways over the years but my most recent method is to pretend to have never heard of that famous person by the same name. That makes the conversation awkward and they usually move on.
Also, if you meet someone who shares a name with a celebrity, keep these things in mind:
- There is nothing you can say about it that is funny or clever. We have heard it all before. Just don’t.
- If you do have something to say about it that is truly original and absolutely hilarious, see the previous rule.
Not exactly a famous person, but I have a somewhat unusual name that happens to be exactly the same as a fairly prolific music executive in my country.
It’s kind of a win-win, because it’s not someone most people have heard of so I don’t get the remarks, but also I’m basically un-Googleable lol
being un-googleable is seriously underrated. if I ever had kids I’d give them the most common names possible for exactly that reason. Sure it can be annoying when you’re the 8th John in your class but that’s a lot easier to get used to than the amount of bullying and harassment you could get for having a really uncommon name, especially if it’s a silly name or shared name with garbage famous person
Yeah, I have an extremely unusual name. From what I can tell there are at most three other people in the world with the same name as me, and none of them lives here in the US.
Leaving aside the fun of being hassled for having a weird name when I was a kid, as an adult I am very careful about what I put online, since there is no way to hide it. If it’s in English and connected with my name, it unquestionably concerns me.
I feel this comment.
maybe gets you get reservations at the fancy spots
I have something similar! Mine is a playwright, so not on most people’s radar, unless they Google my name. It’s great.
Oh shit, it’s dead mau five!
I share a name with and average skilled hockey player who played for long time on mediocre teams. We are also the same age.
Although my name is uncommon it is not rare. So many other lawyers, insurance sales, etc who have a larger online presence mask me very effectively.
It’s enough that googling my name is a waste of time.
It also helps that I have a small footprint online with no social media accounts linked back to my real name.