Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Google Your Name, How Do You Rate?

Can you imagine naming your child uniquely so that the child is easily searched when he becomes an adult? These people did just that:

So when Ms. Wilson, now 32, was pregnant with her first child, she ran every baby name she and her husband, Justin, considered through Google to make sure her baby wouldn't be born unsearchable. Her top choice: Kohler, an old family name that had the key, rare distinction of being uncommon on the Web when paired with Wilson. "Justin and I wanted our son's name to be as special as he is," she explains.
This family is picking a unique name for their kid so he comes up first in a search. I remember Ann Althouse being excited because when you search the plain Jane name "Ann" her name comes up first. But in an age of information invasiveness, will being the first to come up on a search be a good thing? I can imagine wanting my children to be able to live in relative anonymity if they so choose. A unique name takes away that choice for them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A couple months ago, another blog had this:

In about three years, here's the typical class roll call I expect to see:

Soduku
Jenny
Eowen
Jeauxsyff
All-in
McSteamy
da Vinci
Lauren
Magneto
Jar-Jar
Brittney
Cylon
Advil
Toyota
Kimberly
Nemo
Pyramid
Johnny-dot-com
Catherine
Samsung
Rubidium


Full article "Pimp My Name" here