I’ve googled myself, of course, and found lots of other people with my name (or minor variants thereof). At least one is another published author. Maybe I should “Winston Churchill” him.
Steve Jackson (of Steve Jackson Games and Illuminati) wrote 2 novels for the Fighting Fantasy series of which Steve Jackson (of Games Workshop) was a co-founder, presumably they met at some point to discuss this. The novels did not actually state it was a different Steve Jackson.
I wonder if Roger Moore (the actor) and Roger E. Moore (the writer) ever met. Probably not, but one can hope.
A collection agency came after me for a bad check written by someone with the same name as me. I fought them for 6 months. They finally sent me a copy of the check. The address was in a city in which I have never lived. A driver’s license number on the back was totally different than mine. I drove to the house and knocked on the door. A guy answered, I said I was Joe Blow* and I was looking for Joe Blow*. He said that was his son. He called him down and I asked him about the bad check. Apparently his plan was to write a check he could not cover then pay it when someone tried to collect on it. We later met at the retailer and the kid covered the check. The manager felt bad for me, he promised to clear up the issue immediately and gave me a gift card that just happened to be the same amount has the bad check. Through some genealogy research, we found that our great great great grandfathers were cousins.
The Korean women’s curling team that won the Olympic gold medal in 2018 had all four players named Kim. I don’t think they were related.
My sister and brother-in-law, named Coppola, once met the famous director in a hotel elevator. BIL introduced himself and they had a pleasant conversation for a few minutes, then each went their own way.
If you look for my name on Wiki, there are four hits, although the middle initials differ. I had even heard of one of them (an assistant Secretary of something or other), but never met any of them.
A HS teacher told me they had once had two students with the exact same first, middle, and last names and born on the same day! They had to differentiate them by the name of the street they lived on. Oh, and they turned out to be first cousins! Some lack of imagination in that family.
From 2011 through 2016, there were players in the NFL named Cameron Jordan (defensive end for the New Orleans Saints) and Jordan Cameron (tight end for the Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins).
It’s not entirely clear to me if they ever were on the field at the same time; they were both elected to the Pro Bowl in 2013, but it appears that the only time their teams played in the regular season was in 2014, when the Browns played the Saints. Cameron Jordan had a couple of tackles in that game, but Jordan Cameron had no receptions in the game, and it’s not clear to me, from this box score, if he played in it.
Hari Seldon, it’s not surprising that four Korean women had the surname Kim. It’s one of the three surnames in the country that have the most people. When I was there I heard what was said to be an old saying that if you stood at the top of a hill and tossed a rock down, it would hit a Kim, a Pak, or a Lee.
The parents (married in the 1940s) of a friend of mine, were Fred and Wilma. How often do you find that combo (outside of the Flintstones)?
Michael J. Fox was only 5 when actor Michael Fox died, so they probably didn’t meet. But it does explain why Michael had to add the J (which doesn’t stand for anything - his middle name is Andrew) when he became a professional actor.
The names of the parents of a friend of mine are Maria and Josef. We used to call him Jesse, though his real name is Wolfgang.
When I moved from my home town to a neighboring town, I knew that someone with exactly my name lived there too, because I knew him from school (he’s four years older than me). But shortly after, I met another guy with my name who was the husband of a friend of my housemate’s girlfriend. This guy was about five years younger than me. The first guy is an electrical engineer like me, and I once got a call from one of his business partners that took a few minutes before the caller and I noticed that he was looking for the other guy. The younger guy sadly committed suicide, and one condolence card was misaddressed to my house.
The ABC station in Cleveland featured Fred Griffith (on the right in this photo) and Wilma Smith as co-hosts of the Afternoon Exchange during the 1970’s.
My parents names were Mary and Joseph.
And I was born in December. Their first-born son *
It hasn’t affected me, though. Not at all.
*although they already had a daughter.
From 1974 to 1980, William Edwin Foster was the head men’s basketball coach at Duke University. From 1975 to 1984, William Carey Foster headed the Clemson University program. Since both schools are in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the two men each known as Bill Foster matched wits on the court several times during the latter half of the 1970’s.
Speaking of sports, according to Google, the commentator Gerry Sandusky did not ever meet Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky, nor were they the same person, yet for awhile people were mistakenly mad at the Gerry-with-a-g. I’ve never deliberately gone to someone’s Twitter feed (as opposed through seeing links elsewhere), with the except of Gerry Sandusky, during the aftermath of the trial, when I would occasionally come in to see how many people had gone off on a half-cocked rant against the sportscaster, thinking it was the coach.