As I child I was fascinated about British royalty with the same first name as me. Pored over their portraits and bios in the encyclopedias at school. Thought for sure when I was older I’d plan trips to their palaces and memorial statues. Much later I discovered the name was originally biblical, but by then I had no interest, felt no connection, to others with the name, and never looked up the passages, etc.
But my adult nickname is shared by a couple of upcoming movie stars, so I have a new chance for name identity fascination.
My first name is pretty unusual, so I do tend to keep a mental tally of famous people with the same name, though they seem to be exclusively sports figures and a few old-school Hollywood types; I’m sure there must be a famous politician or other high-profile personality with the name, too, but I can’t recall any offhand.
My name was very common when I was a kid; I remember three of us in the same class. Nowadays it’s not so common, except among guys in my age group. I don’t feel any particular connection with others with the same name.
There’s pretty much no one else named Kyla, so…no. I did know one other Kyla in college and we were both pretty thrilled to meet someone else with our name. OTOH, my middle name is much more common and no, I don’t feel a connection with other people with that name. Although I’ve used variations of it as my pseudonym while traveling in places where people couldn’t pronounce Kyla, or in language classes where we had to use the local variant of our names. (Guess what? No Spanish version of Kyla. But my middle name is from Greek mythology and has a local variant in, I expect, every European language.)
When I was a kid there were several other girls in my school with my name (Sarah). Which makes sense because it is a supposedly popular name (especially in the 80’s; it was #4 the year I was born) but for some reason I rarely come across others with that name anymore. So, I do feel a bit of kinship with other people named Sarah (but, not Sara … ew).
Perhaps a side rant, but why the hell is it that although the “h” version has always been more popular, stupid idiot people always leave it off when they write my name down? At least 95% of the time.
Except for the relatives I got my name from directly (first name from paternal grandmother, who died years before I was born, and middle name from a great-aunt, who died just a few years ago and was always one of my favorites) I’ve never felt super connected or proud for anyone who shares my name.
There’s a couple Biblical people with it that I’m cool with, especially when Mary’s mother is translated as Anna, not as Anne (because I’m an Anna), but other than in the Bible, I can’t think of many Annas I’d like to be connected with. Anna Friel is fine, but that tennis Anna with the tricky last name? No thanks.
There’s a professional hockey player with the exact same first and last name as me, and we were both born in the same country and year. One part of me hopes to see him make the NHL some day. On the other hand, he was traded once and man was it weird to see my own name in a news story, even if it wasn’t about me. If he made the NHL I’d get that feeling all of the time.
I was named after someone famous that was born a month before me. No, my parents won’t fess up to it, but I know the truth. I had 7 other girls with the same first and middle name in one class.
I’m more likely to read a headline if she is in it, and I can’t say I was thrilled with one of her marriages, but no, I really feel no connection.
I used to look for people – usually athletes – with the same name as mine as a kid, but they were generally disappointing. The best known was Chuck McKinley (and I doubt anyone remembers him now – he was the top US tennis player at a time when tennis was dominated by Australians). There was also Chuck Hiller, who actually played for my favorite team and is the answer to a pretty good trivia question (Who is the first National League player to hit a grand slam home run in the World Series?). But not much beyond that.
On the other hand, in the world of science fiction, people usually think of me when they hear “Chuck” (unless they think it’s Chuq von Rossbach).
Not a namesake, but looking through an old almanac I discovered my birthdate had been a Kentucky state holiday. But it turned out to be obsolete. It had been civil war general Nathan Bedford Forrest’s birthday, the founder of the KKK, now disgraced.
Didn’t have many famous ones growing up. Neil Armstrong, of course, and Diamond, Young and Sedaka; Neil Kinnock, the former (UK) Labour Party leader, which didn’t do much good since Paddy Ashdown was our MP and my parents voted Conservative anyway, and that was it.
I didn’t know who Neil Gaiman was until I got older.