Do you follow your Googlegangers online?

Photo by Abe Shelton from The New York Times

The New York Times has a cute photo (above) of a group of women who are all called Angela Shelton with an article headlined Names That Match Forge a Bond on the Internet.

Everyone goes "name surfing" from time to time, so all the Angela Sheltons bump into what other Angela Sheltons are doing. Sometimes they find each other, and one of them (a superhero Goddess) has written a book about it. The NYT story says:

In "Finding Angela Shelton," a book published this month, a writer named Angela Shelton describes her meetings with 40 other Angela Sheltons. Keri Smith, an illustrator, has posted drawings of six of her Googlegängers on her blog. There are name-tally Web sites like SameNameAsMe, and Facebook coalitions including nearly 200 people named Ritz (their insignia is a cracker box logo) and a group aiming to break a world record by gathering together more than 1,224 Mohammed Hassans.

Obviously there will be fewer people called, say, David Belbin or Algernon Moncrieff than something common like Tom Jones or Gordon Brown.

The NYT adds a bit of science:

A psychological theory called the name-letter effect maintains that people like the letters in their own names (particularly their initials) better than other letters of the alphabet.

In studies involving Internet telephone directories, Social Security death index records and clinical experiments, Brett Pelham, a social psychologist, and colleagues have found in the past six years that Johnsons are more likely to wed Johnsons, women named Virginia are more likely to live in (and move to) Virginia, and people whose surname is Lane tend to have addresses that include the word "lane," not "street."

Apparently, " The number of Virginias who move to Virginia, for example, is 36% higher than could be expected by chance."

What you don't want is for "your" name to be the same as someone who becomes well known for the wrong reasons, like Ted Bundy or Harold Shipman.

An article in the Wall Street Journal almost a year ago (You're a Nobody Unless Your Name Googles Well) pointed out that some parents now Google potential baby names in the attempt to get something that stands out.

Have you thought of changing your name to one that Googles better? Adding an initial could be enough, if you can get people to use it....