Both of my real names are two of the most common in North America, so Googling either returns nothing on me (at least as far is as practical to sort through the results). (Yes, I have two "real"names. One legal and one that everybody goes by. Besides legal records [and even some of them are in my alias] everything in the world is by my alias name. And yes, it has caused problems in the past.)
Googling my SD name also returns nothing of relevance. Even including “straightdope” in the search only returns one relevant result in the first batch of hits.
My real name is extremely common. There is another person with the same name, first and last, at the warehouse of about 200-300 people I work at, in another department. So Googling and trying to find me is impossible. In fact, even if you include my middle name I get a doctor in Canada. Myrealname-dot-com is not me, LiveJournal with my real name is not me, etc.
“Ataraxy” turns up a lot of dictionary definitions and such. That’s what happens when you choose a word, not a phrase as a name. I’d like to see a user name “The.” I think that would be strangely cool.
Googling “Mbossa” brings up a wide variety of interesting people and places, interspersed with a few links to crap posted by some boring internet guy.
My RL name is Ben McKenzie. Naturally, googling this brings up thousands of fan sites where excited teenage girls discuss who they perceive to be the sexiest man alive.
Googling my username gets some hits that are all related to me.
Googling my real name which is not uncommon gets a lot of hits. There are quite a few about me, and then two other people, one English, one American who has the same name as me.
I’ve always gone by my middle name, or more accurately, a diminutive of my middle name. Professionally, it’s usually FirstInitial-MiddleName-Lastname, or FirstInitial-MiddleInitial-Lastname. Since it’s a very common name, you really need to know more about me than just my name.
Middlename (nickname) Lastname - 3.8 million hits, of which I do not show up on the first 10 pages.
Middlename (formal) Lastname - 2.2 million hits, of which I again do not show up on the first 10 pages.
FirstInitial Middlename Lastname - 678,000 hits - I show up on p. 3
FirstInitial MiddleInitial Lastname - 8.4 million hits, of which I do not show up on the first 10 pages.
If I put in my employer along with Middlename Lastname, then I show up on 4 of the 10 links on the first page (71,900 total hits).
Username - I keep getting links to some woman named “Alice Cooper”
The first hit is my facebook page. The third is a page on ratemyteachers.com where three people have rated me fairly highly. WTF?? Where did this come from? I’m amazed that anyone would take the time to make a page on me. Unfortunately, there are no comments or any way to figure out who put it on there.
I have a hyphenated (ie, unique) last name and an unusual first name, so everything that pops up is about me. Nothing very exciting. My Facebook, a mention in a blog with a comment I emailed to the blogger, a couple of references to websites I built for jobs ages ago.
Then I got a couple of weird spam-like pages. I don’t know what the hell that’s about. Trust me, my name is sufficiently unique that it’s REALLY unlikely that a spam page would have all three of my names in proper order just by coincidence. There must be some way that they insert whatever term was googled just so they can pop up no matter what.
My maiden name and married name are not common at all Googling either brings up articles I’ve written for professional publication as well as a linked in profile. The linked in profile gives out a little too much personal information for comfort. Is there a way to get it removed?
My username used to be unique (This post is brought to you by the letter “U”). A few months ago, I googled it again to find that someone used it to make an online T-shirt company. I was actually kind of ticked. I’m seriously thinking of changing my nic just because of this.
Searching my real name:
Several hundred hits come up, the vast majority of which refer to me. I wrote a lot of entries for imdb a while back, and so now there are a mess of actor fan sites, film festival sites and online retailers using my work (and who knows how many more doing so without including my name).
There’s also my Flickr photostream, which has been linked to by a lot of other people.
Searching my SDMB name:
A lot of links to Sublight records, plus a lot of sci-fi stuff and a few scientific speculation references. Almost nothing that refers to me.
Hrrrmph—I’m a nobody. Google my ass and all you come up with is a charity I donated a few bucks to in 2004, and a newspaper guest book that I left a comment at a few years ago. Now, if you Google my first cousin, you’ll get 1200 hits, and they’re all him. He’s the brains in the family.
The first hit on my real name that isn’t a social networking type site is a patent application, and it’s the real me. Most of the next few pages are ancestry stuff of people who are no blood relation since I’m married.
I googled my SDMB name before I signed up just in case there was some reason to avoid it.
Apparently I am a dental airscaler. And I’ve got an autoclavable handpiece!
Googling my actual name is actually quite good… both my formal name (school PR stuff, misc projects) and my nickname + last name (facebook, other assorted junk) have results for me at the top. Found a couple things about me I didn’t even know was online, and also found out that I am mostly unique (there may be someone in Wisconsin with the same first and last name).
Googling my Dope name brings up… nothing at all related to me on the first few pages. Apparently RO is an abbreviation of some sort, and there are a lot of people with the last name Carter.
