# How do I search for a specific first and last name? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 25, 2024, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341 "2024-03-25T15:59:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/1 "2024-03-25T15:59:17Z")
I am trying to get information and possibly pictures about a specific person, but unfortunately this person’s first and last name are also used to describe something else. For example, if his name was Van Tower I would get news about vans, towers, vans by towers etc. Likewise if I search for images. How do I limit the search to just that person’s name? ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/2 "2024-03-25T16:01:49Z")
Have you tried quotes - “Van Tower” ? ETA : 2nd hit is people on facebook called Van Tower ! ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/3 "2024-03-25T16:03:21Z")
Is this person famous enough to be on Wikipedia or some other reference site? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/4 "2024-03-25T16:14:11Z")
Didn’t work at all. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/5 "2024-03-25T16:14:53Z")
No, they aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/6 "2024-03-25T16:18:14Z")
This used to work, but lately for me it doesn’t - at least not like used to. There should be a way to type in a search term and get results for that term only, not a “we assumed you meant \_\_\_ so we gave you those results instead”. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/7 "2024-03-25T16:19:04Z")
You can’t really limit it to just his name. You have to work at the edges by adding and subtracting things that might interfere, like a search for “Van Tower” AND “birthsville” -“Towertown” -“ford” -“Econoline” Keep adding and subtracting until you get a hit. You can also try a Google search limited to a particular page, like site:college.edu “Van Tower” ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/8 "2024-03-25T16:25:35Z")
I’d try social networks such as LinkedIn first; the person might be signed up there under that name, and the search function should be much more targeted towards personal names than all-purpose search engines such as Google. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/9 "2024-03-25T16:37:03Z")
One of the major search engines (I can’t remember which) used to allow case-sensitive searches, but they disabled that feature a long time ago. For example, a search for **“Van Tower”** (with the quotation marks, of course) would have excluded results spelled “van tower”, “Van tower”, and “van Tower.” Those days are gone, sadly. I can sometimes get around the difficulty by doing a Google (or other search engine) search for **“van tower”** (with any old capitalization) and then in the results page, using the browser’s find-in-page function (ctrl-f in Windows) to do a case-sensitive search for “Van Tower.” In Firefox enabling case-sensitive find-in-page is a simple matter of checking a tick box or typing alt-c after the find-in-page dialog box appears. Then use ctrl-g to cycle through the results that are actually spelled “Van Tower” with the right capitalization. Or maybe you can find a search engine that still allows case-sensitive searches, but I don’t know of any. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/10 "2024-03-25T16:44:32Z")
If you try fiddling with Google’s so called advanced search at **[Google Advanced Search](https://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en&fg=1)** you might learn some useful tips. Or you might find it’s been nerfed in the service of giving you ads for something sorta kinda like maybe what you typed in. But worth a try; we won’t know the results until you do. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/11 "2024-03-25T17:18:05Z")
Try people location sites like the following. If you know someone with a newspaper archives membership search the newspapers. Many newspapers are also archived in their home town library. Check the county court records, both criminal and probate. [https://www.whitepages.com/](https://www.whitepages.com/) [https://www.zabasearch.com/](https://www.zabasearch.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/12 "2024-03-25T17:37:31Z")
No luck yet. BTW, it has been over thirty years since I last saw them, so imputing location is kind of hard. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/13 "2024-03-25T18:01:06Z")
This is not free but I found a few people I haven’t seen in 30 or 40 years - I used one of those sites you pay for, Truth Finder or Beenverified I think. I got a trial membership for a few days and used a gift card so the site didn’t have my actual credit card number. There was enough information that I was able to identify which Joe Johnson was the one I was looking for - their address or phone number from 40 years ago ( still remembered the address, recognized the phone number ) and/or names of relatives. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/14 "2024-03-25T18:58:12Z")
One thing to improve specificity of Google search results is, select “Search tools” and change “All results” to “Verbatim”. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/15 "2024-03-25T20:07:27Z")
In addition to the links above, maybe [peoplefinders.com](http://peoplefinders.com) ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2024, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/16 "2024-03-25T23:57:36Z")
Do you know anything about the person? If you search my (real) you will find 7 people on Wiki with my name. But if you search for mathematician real name I come right up. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2024, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/17 "2024-03-26T00:02:22Z")
I know her face, her voice, her laugh, her hobbies, where she grew up, and I see her ex-husband in the mirror every morning. I just want to know how she is doing…if she is still alive. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2024, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/18 "2024-03-26T00:21:27Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I see her ex-husband in the mirror every morning It’s your ex-wife? Presumably you know her date of birth; add that to your Google search. Or other known facts; like the year she graduated and the school she attended. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2024, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/19 "2024-03-26T00:27:44Z")
Hasn’t helped yet. She has either totally disappeared, left the country (wouldn’t be the first time), or “left” completely. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2024, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341/20 "2024-03-26T00:49:55Z")
Add “obituary” to the search. Other events noted in the papers could work too. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-search-for-a-specific-first-and-last-name/999341.md?page=2)