Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Your cyber twin


Googleganger. I ran across the word last week when I was skimming through a stack of NEWSWEEKs. You probably know what a doppelganger is--your shadowy twin. Your "googleganger" is the person who has your name and comes up when you do a "vanity search"--a search for your own name in Google.

According to the article, your Googleganger is your "rival in a race to the top of the Google hit list." But for others, a Googleganger is a "lifelong irritant." I mean, can you imagine sharing your name with a porn star? A Nobel prize winner?

I've discovered a couple of my personal Googlegangers--not really through Google, but because we're all vying for "angelahunt.com." Due to the vagaries of the registration system, I didn't get it--Angela Hunt the Democratic council woman in Dallas did. And there's "AngelaHuntmusic.com," which belongs to a musician, and there's an Angela Hunt publishing company, which also isn't me, and there's an Angela Hunt who takes art photographs. There's an Angela Hunt who writes for a British TV show . . . and an Angie Hunt who reports for a TV station in the midwest, I think.

Actually, now that you think of it, I think it's interesting that all these Angela Hunts are active in artistic fields. I'm sure there are other Angela Hunts who aren't, but we artsy types have all convened on the web.

I'm happy to share my name (seeing that I don't have much choice in the matter!), and I hope all the other Angela Hunts will do well in their work and remember that we are all--literally--bearing each other's names. So let's keep our noses clean, girls, and mind our reputations. In this age, when we are all connected, a name has never been more important.

So--who's your Googleganger?

~~Angie

14 comments:

Deborah said...

heh i don't have one. with such a unique name like mine, i'm the only one in existence!

Shauna said...

I don't have one either and AFAIK, no one else shares my name. I can occasionally even type my first name only into Google and find my blog on the first page of hits.

Anonymous said...

Well the first google page o' hits is all me except for a "Susan Plettsch" ...

Christina Tarabochia said...

I have two that I know of: a Native American artist and a boxer!

Caitriona said...

My twin is dead. She was an immigrant who escape a famine in Ireland. Lots of them in Irish family trees.
My daughter "Katie" is my name sake and yes Katie with a K and Catherine (her given name) with a C.

Kathy Cassel said...

I startead writing as "katrina cassel" my given name ages ago because I thot that was the way it was done. But since I go by Kathy, I thought it would make sense to change it to kathy cassel. For fun I put it in google and came up with this weird psychic person!! I decided to continue writing under Katrina! I write for young girls and I could just see one of them google my name to see if I had any new books out and come up with the psychic.

Jill said...

Well before becoming published in full length fiction, I went to claim a domain name. Naturally my first choice, was www.jillnelson.com; however, that domain belongs to a feminist journalist who writes erotica. So not me! So I had to decide what name I should write under, which would then determine what domain name I should claim. A pen name was a possibility, but that opens a fresh can of worms. Ultimately, I decide that I like my middle name so I write as Jill Elizabeth Nelson. That is also my domain for my web site--www.jillelizabethnelson.com. Nevertheless, if anyone ever googles just Jill Nelson, they will get more sites about my googleganger than about me. LOL

Anonymous said...

Hardly needed to check - I mean, really, how many people named Clyde Osterhaus Thayer could there be??? Funny that two of the hits were when I had blogged on your site back when I used my whole name! I'm not very famous otherwise. Clyde

Christy Lockstein said...

The closest I would have is my sister in law who is also actually Christine or Chris Lockstein to my Christina or Christy Lockstein. I don't think that there are any others out there.

Catherine West said...

Now this is fun. Catherine West is the CEO of JCPenny and just hit the Fortune Five Hundred top fifty list!
HA. Who knew?
I guess that explains my taste for all things expensive...maybe I can borrow her visa sometime...

Kay Day said...

My googleganger is an author who lives in FL. I think she does mostly poetry, so I am keeping my own name. I bet her name isn't really Kay, anyway, it's probably Katherine or something. Most Kays are nicknames.
This site is cool. Tells how many people have your name.
I think maybe I got this from you in the first place?
http://howmanyofme.com/search/

Kay Day said...

Well, I just went to that site I gave and there are some pretty risque ads on there. Man, why do they DO that? Uck.

Angela said...

I was trying to think of that site, Kay--I do remember posting about it a while back. I think it searches telephone books or something. :-)

Well, here's to the googlegangers of the world! May we all share cyberspace in peace and harmony!

Angie

Becky said...

I have found at least two Googlegangers with my same name. One had posted on a blog or message board and I got her email. Not only is she a nice person, she's a Christian too. She had done a Google search and found several others. One of them is an artist, who due to a medicinal reaction lost her arms and legs, but she still draws and paints, and she's a Christian too! I don't know about the other ones, but half of us with my same name are believers and that's a good thing!