MetaChat - How many people in the US share your name?

33, apparently. I'm willing to bet most are in the New York or Boston metro areas.

posted by jonmc 20 October | 10:11

None. But then, I knew this already. Anyone with my last name (at least anyone in the US) is directly related to me — the most distant being second cousins. And I know none of them are named Dan.

There are a few other deadcows in the Netherlands, and their might now be a Daniel in there somewhere, but I've never found one.

posted by deadcowdan 20 October | 10:13

first name: 40,496
last name: 2,040
entire name: 0

posted by getoffmylawn 20 October | 10:14

73, apparently. Who knew?

posted by omiewise 20 October | 10:15

I've got to say that my girlfriend, according to this, doesn't exist!

posted by omiewise 20 October | 10:17

93

posted by danostuporstar 20 October | 10:19

4. However, my boyfriend does not exist, nor does any of his family. Hmm. Of course, the ad for free "zwinkies" on the left doesn't fill me with confidence about the accuracy of this site.

posted by JanetLand 20 October | 10:28

Neither of my kids exist.

posted by danostuporstar 20 October | 10:29

Nonexistent kids are usually well-behaved.

posted by jonmc 20 October | 10:30

Wow. 20!

Via an e-mail situation, I just ran into someone who has my first and last name. Weird. We exchanged e-mails. He seems to be in a Christian rock band in California.

I'm just now checking to see if he has my middle name too. I think he does, as his friends were still sending e-mails to him at my e-mail address that is labelled "shane michael guy."

posted by shane 20 October | 10:31

29? For real? That's crazy. If I had taken my husband's last name, there'd only be one of me.

posted by jrossi4r 20 October | 10:32

My father, girlfriend, best friend, and employer do not exist. Obviously, this entire world is a hallucination I'm having while locked up in a padded room somewhere.

posted by black bile 20 October | 10:33

105. one of them owns firstnamelastname.com. Bitch.

posted by altolinguistic 20 October | 10:35

None, apparently, including me. It says that there's no one with even my last name, which is also wrong (my last name is Attix, rare, but not that rare). I had a guy call me on the phone once to ask me what part of the family I was from. It turned out that his son was also named Tom, so there is at least one other of me floating around out there (although from from the father's description he might be a homeless drug addict, so maybe not leaving a paper trail).

posted by doctor_negative 20 October | 10:38

0.
Although only 330 people share my surname, so it's not suprising.

posted by seanyboy 20 October | 10:38

178! From auto-googling, I know that one is a current high school track runner and one was born in the early 1800s. Another has an Amazon wish list that caused my father to rethink his Christmas list for me, filled as it was with weird porn and radical feminist theory.

posted by Elsa 20 October | 10:38

13 499 with my first name, plus 89 991 with my last name = 4 people who share my name.

mr. g has 878 with his name. And it would be nearly 2000 if he spelt his first name the more common way.

posted by gaspode 20 October | 10:48

Thirteen others. I plan on finding them, cutting off their heads, and gaining their power.

There can be only one.

posted by Greg Nog 20 October | 10:48

832. My last name isn't that common but I guess when you combine it with Michael, it makes it easy to get hits. I don't even show up until page 5 or 6 of a self-google. In fact, there was another me in my elementary school.

posted by mike9322 20 October | 10:51

Actually it's amazing that I got first.last@gmail.com, come to think of it. I just got a birthday e-card yesterday intended for someone else.

posted by mike9322 20 October | 10:56

None, but I'd be suprised if there were any.

posted by Daniel Charms 20 October | 11:00

There are over a million with my first name. (No wonder I'm always turnin' my head...)

None, though, with my first and last name. (I think I came across one or two when googling, though, if memory serves).

With Jon's last name, there'd be 74 me's. That's quite the harem...

posted by Pips 20 October | 11:04

Wow, there are two. That means I have to find the other one and kill him!

posted by pieisexactlythree 20 October | 11:10

woo. just 1 of me.

posted by stynxno 20 October | 11:11

hah! 23 of me, but NONE of my boyfriend. Evidently I have been dating a phantom!

posted by scody 20 October | 11:13

I am the only American with my name. :)

posted by By the Grace of God 20 October | 11:17

178.

posted by deborah 20 October | 11:19

I don't exist. Awesome! I have long suspected as much!

posted by mygothlaundry 20 October | 11:21

Three hundred and sixty with my full name. Looks like I have a lot of work to do!

posted by wimpdork 20 October | 11:22

Yeah, this is totally bogus. I know there are at least 6 or 7 others with my name, but this site says 0.

posted by agropyron 20 October | 11:39

those in the US whose answer was 0 should just stop paying taxes now and see what happens.

There is only 1 American with my name - me.

posted by Hellbient 20 October | 11:48

Lots and lots of people have my first/last name. I actually once worked at a large university campus and when I hit up the campus directory and there was someone with my exact first/last. I would expect my first name, but my last would seem to be uncommon.

I actually like it like that, though, 'cause it makes me practically un-googleable.

posted by loquacious 20 October | 12:23

not enough.

yet.

posted by panoptican 20 October | 12:28

Just the one.

posted by TheDonF 20 October | 12:32

27 have my name, and 2,000 have an alternate spelling of my name. Those people suck.

posted by muddgirl 20 October | 12:40

20.

posted by Prospero 20 October | 12:44

Not even I have my name, although a google search confirms that there's at least one other of me in the country, plus the famous canadian criminal (who spells his name slightly differently...)

posted by dersins 20 October | 12:44

I just typed in Rene Descartes. He doesn't exist. Guess he wasn't thinking.

posted by JanetLand 20 October | 12:46

One person with my name in the U.S. I bet it's this loser.

I am, however, heartened by the fact that there are no Orange Swans whatsoever.

posted by Orange Swan 20 October | 12:58

0. I don't exist! Wow!

posted by ramix 20 October | 12:58

only 7 of me.

posted by terrapin 20 October | 13:59

There are 0 people in the US with my last name.

I always knew my very large extended family was made of freaky ghosts.

posted by mudpuppie 20 October | 14:01

From the FAQ:

Q: Why isn't my name on the list?

The list of names from the census bureau isn't complete. For privacy reasons, names with relatively few responses were not included in the list. We used this data to create this site. Our site can only be as good as the data we have to work with.

Around 1 out of every 10 people will have a last name not on the list.
Around 1 out of every 10 people will have a first name not on the list.

Kind of a bummer for the 10-percenters among us.

posted by Doohickie 20 October | 14:40

243 people with my first and last names. Now you know why I like to include the "M" for my middle name.

posted by kmellis 20 October | 15:55

I get 26 with my full name, 3 with just "dan".

One of them is a pharmacist, one a soccer player, and one is a corporate farmer who's testified before Congress. Funnily, they used to have a sign right outside our hometown, and we drove past his house once (it's in very rural SW Wisconsin), completely by chance.

Unsurprisingly I beat them all hands-down in Google, with something like 90% of the first 100 results being something I posted somewhere or something posted about me somewhere.

posted by stilicho 20 October | 15:55

I don't exist either.

But I already knew I'm the only person in the United States with my last name.

In Canada there are two, my dad and brother; three if you count my mom, who has the name legally but uses her birth name for most publicly visible purposes.

posted by tangerine 20 October | 16:18

Though I'm 100% certain that there's no other human with my first, middle ('Sands', and no my parents weren't hippies), and last name, there's six with my first and last name. One of those fuckers owned the domain theonlychris.com. I sent him an official-looking C&D email a few years back and lo! the site no longer exists. True, I doubt my mailing had anythng to do with it, but still...

I wish I could do the same to the me-named asshole that plays in a goddamn self-described 'Phish-flavored' jam band, as I'm a musician myself and have heard from folks that I haven't been in contact with for a few years wondering why I drastically changed musical paths.

posted by item 20 October | 16:32

stilicho, you conveniently forgot to mention this:

Newsgroup Article alt.hipcrime.pedophilia.daniel-hartung

unless that *is* you, and then, well, never mind.

posted by item 20 October | 16:38

NObody has my last name but me.

posted by Specklet 20 October | 16:44

0 with both names, 0 with the last name. I sort of expected that, but geez.

posted by tommasz 20 October | 17:27

341,964 with my first name. 12,059 with my last name. 14 with the same name. One of them apparantly is a Methodist minister and an author.

posted by redvixen 20 October | 18:45

There are 84. The most successful ones are always the top hits in Google. They are all oncologists and chemists and stuff. Way for me to know that I have strayed off the Chosen Path.

On the bright side, I don't show up at all in Google searches of my name.

After I got out of college I lived a few miles away. There was an indie video store where a lot of alumni rented videos. The store owner said there were ten other people signed up there under my name.

84 is probably too low, since a lot of Chinese people go by American names which aren't part of their legal name.

posted by halonine 20 October | 19:41

Over 8000.

I feel safer somehow.

posted by vers 20 October | 20:57

Twenty-one of me.

There are about a million Jasons in the USA, of whom probably 85% were born about the same time I was, give or take about three years. My unusual surname brings the number down a bit.

posted by jason's_planet 20 October | 21:37

20 October 2006