Monday, May 12th, 2008

Should you choose an unusual name for your baby?

in: Communicate, Standing out

The US Federal Government announced recently that its terrorist watch list contained nearly 800,000 names.

Richard Reid, who tried to blow up an airplane in December, 2001, had a fairly common name. www.namestatistics.com says that Richard is the eighth most common name in the world; and Reid is the 232nd most common last name. According to www.yournotme.com, there are 227 people in the UK named Richard Reid. With those odds, people with a common name are increasingly likely to be mistaken for someone on the list.

Some people whose names are similar to those on the watch list—or are listed—have countered by putting search technologies to use in their defense. Hasan Elahi decided to put his whole life online when he was mistakenly added to the watch list.

I like my name (now that I’m out of grade school.) Alistair is pretty unusual, and there are only 2,500 people with my last name in North America. But I mostly like it because it’s unique. Today, we live in a searchable world. Once upon a time, a familiar name might have made an appealing name choice in the schoolyard. But today, uniqueness has its advantages.

For one thing, I don’t have to share my search results with others.

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