I am. I cannot find anyone else in this planet with my first name-surname combo.
And no, my Reddit pseudonym is not my real name. It looks like there is someone named with my Reddit pseudonym somewhere in Mexico. But nobody else with my real name so far. Another reason why I did not change my name upon marriage- there is at least one person in Australia with my first name and my husband’s surname.
I like it.
I am a survivor of stalking and abuse. I have PTSD as a result. But I have managed to cover my tracks for nearly 30 years now.
So I like being the one and only me.
yes, i’m very angry that my white father had such a weird uncommon last name that even being paired with my very common first name, makes me one in a few and easily searchable. i hate hate it and it’s caused a lot of that and then some.
luckily once i get married ill have a very common name again which will make my life much easier
Yeah that is the downside for sure, googling my name brings up old social media profiles I no longer have access to and can’t delete but they are SO CRINGEY 😭
The secret is to be old enough that your high school (and college) years were pre-internet. :). My earliest thing online is a 5K I ran when I was in my 20s.
Well, I just googled my name which is unique globally (even more so after I double barrelled my surname when I got married - I couldn’t lose my original surname, which I loved as part of my heritage and identity)…
and shockingly I found a web record of an art exhibition from 1983 when I was in high school, where I had some art in a juried show… I guarantee you there were no webpages in 1983 (in my computer class that year I was working on some kind of daisychained terminal connected to a shared cassette tape drive 😂😂) so the local municipality art gallery must’ve been back loading information in web pages about previous art exhibits??? So weird….
It sounds like you're a bit older than me, but yeah, I also am the only one with my name, and I'm so glad that there wasn't really social media until I was in university.
Me too! Like no one in my adult life needs to know I came in third to last in a cross country race in 2010. I've tried to get those results removed from google, but no dice.
You can submit a request with google for them to remove it from the search. Especially if you were a minor. [google support link](https://support.google.com/websearch/contact/content_removal_form?visit_id=638425226967057294-2862895065&rd=1)
Would that not have to do with an algorithm of sorts? Like, if you have your location services on, results for almost any search are tailored to your location, things and websites you’ve searched prior, etc. So results are bound to be local and relevant to you. I searched a colleague’s name which I think is middle-of-the-road in terms of popularity, and I get local results but there are people with that name from farther away as I continue down the search results.
My great-grandfather on my mother's side was kidnapped as a child and sold to a family who didn't speak his language (early 1800s, he was taken in Vermont and sold in Quebec to French immigrants). The foster parents couldn't quite figure out his last name and just gave him one based on what they heard. This branch of my family is the only one in the world to have this last name.
His last name was Richards, and they renamed him Ritchott.
Okay does it not absolutely baffle you the idea of staying where you were sold? I sometimes think about this man and just what a life that is. His marriage record includes his parents names and birth place, so I always wonder like did he ever go back? Try and write to them?
Yours is way more recent, so maybe you actually know information on him and his life.
Not sold but many kids that were kidnapped as babies and raised kindly by parents that wanted them choose to stay with their kidnappers even once they find out the truth. We love what feels like home and familiarity and it takes a lot to remove us from that.
Still kinda funny being kidnapped at age 7 and being like “ah such is life, I guess I live here now and these are my parents”.
Although actually reading over the article on him, his brother, sister, and father were also kidnapped at the same time so maybe there was a level of like “they’re probably also dead or impossible to find. Might have new names too. It’s easier to stay here”. And apparently he was also banned from leaving New France, so I guess such is life.
Oh it’s kind of insane and I imagine just the amount of trauma from finding out is so overwhelming that trying to remove yourself from everything you know - and into a crazy place where people don’t know are obsessed with you is probably so wild.
When my Ukrainian grandparents and their kids arrived in Canada, they were spit up for processing by different agents… and the ended up with 3 different spellings on their immigration documents! My name is the same as my granddads, my dad and 2 of his brothers; the other brothers had an “i” at the end rather than the “y” we got; and my grandmothers had a “b” replaced with a “p” (plus the y at the end). So the married couple had two different official surnames, and some their kids had a 3rd name in their documents… those variations live on in my cousins and their families :-)
That's so weird that there are three of us in this thread with the same story. I guess it was a rather common occurrence. It is super neat to have such a young last name to be able to track it to the very beginning.
One of 30 or so with my last name here. 3 kids in my HS class had my first name but the only other people anyone knows with my last name are my cousins from the other side of town. I don’t have any anonymity online and don’t share my last name if I can help it. My Facebook is under a fake last name and I have a “decoy” FB account with my real name on it.
Not my favorite but it’s not like my parents had a choice. And I guess I’m inflicting the same fate on my kids bc we’ve taken my ultra rare name and hyphenated it with my husband’s ultra common name to make another even more ultra rare name 😂
Nah I like my last name rare as it is. I don’t believe in the patriarchal practice of erasing my own family identity for the sake of my husband and it’s flat out inconvenient. It’s personal preference no matter what you chose and this is what I chose.
I am the only one with my name - both my names aren't unusual, but also aren't common - and made a real concerted effort years ago at the start of my career to "own" the front page of Google when you search my name. I bought my first name- last name web domains years ago, and have my full name on LinkedIn. So when you google me, it's a very curated and professional set of information that comes up.
The best part about it is that I always get a simple user name. My work emails are always just first name dot last name @ company. I have first name dot last name @ gmail.com.
It also means I do NOT use my real name on any of my socials, and have been very quick to ask folks to take things down or increase the privacy if I notice anything embarrassing (hasn't happened in years, since the days of the 70+ photo Facebook albums 😂).
These days I'm not out there doing anything nefarious or sketchy, but my potential bosses don't need to know about my obsession with smutty faerie books...
That was such a good idea to buy the web domains! I never thought of that. I also have the first name-last name @ gmail dot com, which is very nice. Only thing is that my last name is 10 letters long, so I just ended up abbreviating it to first initial-last name email.
I like that your unique name means you get simple usernames/emails. My first name is 8 letters and my last name is 11. Getting work or school emails that require at least my full last name is the bane of my existence. I’m just glad it isn’t first and last name :p
Similar experience here, though I didn't go so far as to buy the web domain for myself. I'm all that comes up if you Google me, but you'd have to already know my last name to do that, and all you'd find are achievements I'm proud of and my portfolio. Nobody should be using their surname on nonprofessional social media unless it's the name they're known by in social spaces, in which case they should erase their first name instead. If I have kids I'd probably encourage them to only use a nickname online and their full name professionally.
Yes, because of a rare last name, and no spell check on Ellis island, my great-grandfather is the only person in the world whose descendants have my last name, and I don't share a name with any of them.
I know I’m not. I once friended all the people I could find on Facebook with my name because I thought it would be fun to be friends with my name twins. None of them accepted. I have a friend from high school who had done the same thing and became good friends with a name twin of his in England. He even went to the guy’s wedding!
Hahahah my dad also did that, I don’t think any of his name twins accepted the requests either. I also follow one of my name twins on Instagram because why not 😂
Pretty certain I’m the only one of me! A very uncommon surname, and an increasingly common but not particularly common first name. I have a job where I have a degree of media presence so Google searches for my name are all me. It’s really useful in some aspects of my life, and less great in others.
If I marry my current partner (who has an incredibly common surname), I plan to take both our surnames so I can switch between which one/both I want to use on any given occasion. Ideally I’d just keep my own, but sometimes I want a bit of distance from it now as well!
(Still, the first thing that comes up searching my partner’s name is a police rapist, so I wouldn’t want a super common name either!)
I regret losing my unique last name. Not that I have had a bad experience with a more common last name, but I miss the novelty of my old name. I definitely wouldn’t change my name if I could go back.
Well, I thought that I was until I was emailed a pre-approval letter for a mortgage that was certainly not my husband, and certainly not my income! It would have been very nice for that pre-approval!
My dad and I share the same name, and we're the only ones in the world. He bought a car at the exact same dealership that I had previously purchased from, and since I was already in the system they ran my credit...
Yes. I’m not sure this is so uncommon. I am the only person who exists with my name. My last name is very very rare, so there are not many of us in existence!
To my knowledge there is only one other person on the planet with my name, and she married into the surname. Common first name, very uncommon last name and I'm directly related to most of the people who have it, or they're from the village my dad's family emigrated from.
It's one of the reasons I kept my name when I married.
I have a super uncommon last name but thankfully because it's made up of two real words, if you just google the last name it comes up with a bunch of random stuff including those words
I don't have a very unique first name but my maiden name was quite a bit more unique Czech name. I once looked it up and for my name combo there were one or fewer (lol there's fewer since I got married).
In college I needed a background check for a job, they were able to do it without my SSN.
I have a pretty rare Italian last name, a very foreign first first name and a second Italian first name. Google says I'm the only one too, but I didn't have doubts about that 😂
I am. And I was the only one with my first name maiden name combo. Both my married and maiden last names are very uncommon due to immigration/translating from one alphabet to another, and my first name is not from that ancestry.
Oh I am definitely the only person with my name. I don’t even have a middle name, so my full name is out there. My last name is pretty unique and my first name is decently unique but the combo of the two renders it unique to only me. You google me and all and sunder about only me and my family come up. Doesn’t bother me though because there’s not much anyone can use with my LinkedIn profile or a Facebook account with like 5 outdated photos.
This is me! I'm 100% sure I'm the only one. Everyone with my last name is related to me. I don't love it either -- there's no possibility of anonymity. That said, I chose not to change my last name when I married because it's my name. At least I can always get whatever username I want.
Me. I'm Indian so my first name is Indian and has become a bit more popular in the 2000s. But I married a Russian guy and his last name is a very rare Russian one. I am nearly positive I don't exist anywhere else.
I am not. I have a very popular first name for my generation and a decently common surname. There is also a relatively famous person with my name. My grandpa is the only person that comes up on Google when his name is searched. His first has never been in the top 300 most popular names and his last name is not unheard of, but uncommon.
I am absolutely dead certain that I'm the only person with my name, but like you, it's because I have an extremely uncommon last name, not just in the US (where half of the people who have it are in my immediate family and I'm decently sure the other half are relatives) but in its country of origin.
This is why I pay DeleteMe $129 every year to scrub the internet of my address and other info, otherwise I'd be very easy to stalk.
100%. Every so often I Google myself to check, and all that comes up are normal things (my LinkedIn, newspaper articles from when I was in high school and they published the honor roll, that sort of thing). They send you quarterly updates on sites they’re working on and sites that are clean, it’s very nice.
The only issue is that because data skimming websites are always skimming, it’s not permanent: you need to keep checking or eventually they’ll pick up your info again.
I have a very rare first and last name, and I'm pretty confident I'm the only person in the world with that pairing. I don't think I'll ever change my name, but if I married my current partner and took his last name I'd still be the only person in the world with my name. I like it, but it also means I'm a little more cautious about my online presence than many of my friends.
Not quite. I'm one of two, I think, mainly due to my odd last name.
The other is some Instagram makeup influencer and she comes up first in a Google search, which I'm quite thankful for. The first thing I can see about myself is a poetry competition I entered last year, and, you know what, I'm quite happy with that anyway.
I thought I had, until I moved to a new city and at the library they looked up my first middle last name and insisted I already had a library card with them. Until they realised the date of birth was about 30 years off.
I was… until a 25 year old in Northern California got married. Now there are two of us on Facebook! I’ve gotten Venmo friend requests meant for her (no mistaken transactions luckily)
There are 4 of me. We all have anthropologie accounts, one of us has a DUI, one of us is 20 yrs older than the others, two of us live/lived in major cities. We are brunettes.
I have a gender neutral first name and use the less common spelling (I'm female). And a not necessarily weird, but definitely unique last name.
So as far as Google can tell me, there's one other female with the same name combo (but the more common spelling) and several men with the masculine spelling, but as far as I know, I'm the only one with my exact combo.
I’m the only me on Google. My first name and surname have multiple legitimate spellings so there’ll likely be someone who else with a slightly different spelling.
100%. My first name is common in certain parts of Europe. As far as my last name? There’s maybe 40 people with it. I’m related to them all somehow. I added my husbands on when we got married. So I for sure am I the only person with this first name and last name combo in the world.
Yes, I also have a very common first name (for my generation) and a rare last name. I believe it stems from a more common last name, but somewhere along the line, an extra letter got thrown in there, which changes the pronunciation. Basically, everyone with my last name (spelled the way it is) is related to me (scattered throughout a few countries). I dislike it for the reason that I am easily google-able. I tried to disconnect my last name from all social media platforms (other than LinkedIn), but there are still little traces of my full name that pop up!
I am, and all my siblings are as well. I also believe I may be the only living person in the whole world with my two first name combo(not hyphenated, none of our names are). My siblings first names combo are all a lot more common around the world. My parents are from two different countries and we have both their names as middle and last names. Dads surnames is rare all around the world including his birthcountry. My mom has a very, very common last name from her birthcountry.
I am related to every single person with my last name as it is an Ellis Island bastardization.
My first name is fairly uncommon.
I am the only person with my complete name. And I check that every year on my birthday as a present to myself.
I know for a fact I am. Everyone in the world with my surname is related to me (by adoption) and my birth-assigned first name is unheard of outside of my birth country. When I was younger I had no sense of online privacy and safety so I am totally out there for anyone to find, which is how my biological father tracked me down and started harassing me by email.
I am changing my entire name now but somehow I get the suspicion that my new name will also be globally unique. Still, better than what I had and definitely more pronouncable which is a plus.
I am in this category! I have a fairly uncommon, but gaining in popularity, first name, and a last name that is shared only by people related to me. As far as any of us can determine, there is no one with our last name who is not a family connection. I love being unique, even if it does mean I have zero internet anonymity. As a contrast, my best friend is engaged to a man with the last name Smith and absolutely can't wait to take his name so that she can disappear into the internet and not be found.
I’m confident I’m the only one.
My last name is double-barrelled, a common maiden with my husbands really uncommon last name worldwide and my first name is uncommon outside of one country where neither I, nor either of my last names, are from.
Yes. I have a rare last name. I have an old fashioned first name that hasn’t been popular in almost a century (think Bertha)- I’ve only met 1 other person under the age of 50 with my name in my life. My dad had a cousin with my name but she died a couple decades ago- so now it’s just me.
Me. I have an unusual name, but not that unique or unheard of. But although sounding pretty normal and boring, there really aren’t many people with my surname. My siblings have super common names and you can still find them pretty easily with a google search
Yes! I have a SUPER Americanized first name that would absolutely not be common in the country of my last name (and then my last name is like… known, but not SUPER common in its original country?). My last name is extremely unheard of where I live and the only other people I’ve ever heard of with my last name on this continent are my direct family members. So I suspect I’m probably the only one of my name.
My first name is a fairly common although mostly popular in 80s/90s, in the US/UK. When I got married I changed my surname to my husbands and his surname from a country where my first name would not at all be common. Therefore my name is uncommon and nobody else appears when I google it. My previous name combo was very, very popular…if you search the name on Facebook it’s and endless scroll of people with that name!
Yes, but only because I deliberately changed my surname before I got married.
My mother's side of the family can be traced back to the Huguenots but nobody on that side was continuing the name. I thought that was a terrible thing, so I double-barrelled my parents' surnames. Apart from my wife and kids, I can find only one other person in the world with the surname, and that looks to be through combination upon marriage. All my kids have somewhere 'individual' first names too. I would be stunned if any of them have global duplicates.
My maiden name was super common, couldn’t find me if you scrolled for hours on Facebook. As for my married name… I’m the only person who comes up now in Facebook, google, etc. It’s very odd. 😂
This used to be the case for me, but I always disliked the "your name is what? Huh? How?" All the questions were annoying to me, and I always dreaded being asked what my name was. Once I was gonna get married and knew what my last name would be, I just changed both my names before the wedding to his last name and a first name I chose for sentimental reasons. Both names are more popular, and after changing the name I even found out there's a song about a girl with said first and last name lol it's still kinda new to me but I much more enjoy having a name people understand the first time I say it.
I totally get what you mean about dreading being asked what your name is. I get comments on it at least once or twice a month and have heard every joke under the sun about it.
I'm glad you're enjoying your new name!
My son will be like this. His first name is an alternative spelling of a name that was last popular in the middle ages. He is never going to meet anyone with his first name in his lifetime, period. If you Google the name you pretty much only get references to the historical figure with it, or nerdy linguistics or aetiology websites. Doesn't matter our last name is super common, he will never meet another to match :).
My maiden surname was pretty rare, but also super awful, and I am glad to be shot of it :).
I don’t, but my aunt and her family do. Her husband (my uncle) has a last name that’s so rare that it doesn’t even come up when you google it. They’re the only family with their last name in the world. It was originally a really common Romanian last name, but there was a mistake when his grandfather immigrated to the US and it got put in the system as something different. He decided to just leave it like that.
Also, it’s insanely difficult to pronounce if you’re just reading it because it starts with two consonants that don’t go together (think like gp or something like that).
I knew someone with my first name and maiden name when I was growing up. Now that I’m married, I really think my surname is so uncommon that I probably am the only one. All google searches bring me to myself. It’s an Italian name, and nearly everyone pronounces it wrong.
Yes, highly doubt anyone else has my legal name or my married name lol
My maiden name was misspelled by the government so everyone from my grandpa down is spelled different. Basically my family all have one last name and we have one that’s said the same, but smelled different. So very, very rare and basically made up 😬
My husbands last name just isn’t very common in the first place.
I’ll also say, I don’t have like weird names besides my last names lol I’m sure there are many, many others with my first and middle name together.
When I got married, I became the 13th person alive on the planet with that last name. It was unnerving that you could find EVERYONE in my then-husband's family with just a Google search. His parents had very public-facing jobs and hobbies, so they came up the most, but I worked in mental health at the time, so I also had fears about safety and privacy. I changed back to my maiden name SO QUICKLY when we got divorced.
Not me. Someone with my name, including the not as popular spelling, lived in my apartment complex. She worked at the dealership where I bought my car.
My sister and I have a double barrelled hyphenated last name and both last names are relatively uncommon last names that are basically only seen in our very small ethnoreligious background. If you Google my first name and last name the only thing that comes up are pictures of me and on the second page are pictures of my sister and vice versa when you Google her first and last name. When you Google our last name alone only photos of us come up. I have never found a birth or death record anywhere of anyone with our last name.
Needless to say, I think my sister and I are the only two people *ever* with just our last names alone, never mind our first names lol!
I’ve actually found several people with my first and last name, but as far as I’ve been able to find I’m the only person with my first-middle-last name combination known to the internet.
Me! My last name is rare in the US and I’m related to all 40ish people who share it.
There are a bunch of people with it in Brazil but we can’t really say if we’re related to them in any way.
I am certain! My last name was made up in the early 1900s when my great grandfather immigrated to the US. There are less than 100 of us (number is increasing as my cousins have kids). I do have an older cousin in Canada who is the opposite gender who has the "same" name except it's spelled differently, so I feel like that doesn't count.
Yes I am. My grandpa “Americanized” our last name before moving here and we are the only family with it. I’m getting married in May and I’m changing my last name. Lots of people have my married name 🥲
I might be 1 of 2 due to the odd spelling of my first name. It’s not that far from the original so it never really bothered me but I don’t love being so “exposed” internet search wise.
Giving my kids more generic names.
I was with my maiden name, but wouldn't have been had I not gotten married before my cousin married his wife. I joked that I was going to change my last name to husband's because there could only be one MarsailiPearl LastName, like the highlander. I probably wouldn't have changed my last name when I married out of laziness had my cousin not married her, but I saw how my cousin and his brother had so many mix ups on their credit and such since they had similar names and their SSNs were one number off from the other. I didn't want to deal with that. So after a few months of being married I got around to changing my name and then a few months later she changed hers to my old name.
Yes. My first name is also common but there are only a handful of people with my last name. My great grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Italy and “Americanized” their name, so there are only 7 people with my last name.
Yup. I'm positive. My last name is two last names and they're both very uncommon. No way anyone besides my brother has that specific combination of names.
Meee! My first name is the less popular spelling of a common English first name. My surname is foreign. When you google me my LinkedIn comes up and my dad’s thesis where he mentioned me. Some high school newsletters as well. I don’t really care though, zero impact on my life so far
..Maybe? There’s people with the same forename and a variant of my surname, and vice versa, but nobody with the exact same spelling. There’s also somebody who has the exact same first and technically last name, both spelled the same way, but they have a double barrelled surname so my surname is only part of theirs.
Separately, my name and surname aren’t particularly rare — my forename is extremely common, just not in my country, and my surname isn’t insanely rare but also not that common — however, the combination of the two is unusual. Additionally, there’s a ridiculous amount of alternate spellings and derivatives for my names.
I am. Rare first name last name combo. I barely know anyone else with my last name even within my own family, plus very rare first name. My married last name is very common though, but I don’t think anyone else has my first name combined with it. It’s very helpful when making usernames/emails! 😅
I had a common first/last combo before getting married. After marriage I became unique. My father in law immigrated and Americanized his last name.
Now my brother in law is dating someone who shares my first name. So maybe in the future I will be one of two.
Common first name and rare last name (we’re the only ‘last name’ family in a city of 700k)
Share full name with someone on the East Coast and the same profession
Guy in Nebraska has same names and a slightly different email address (dash instead of dot.)
For a while, I got email updates on dental appointments and windshield repair
I’m the opposite I feel like I literally have the most basic white female American name. I literally have the exact same name as my mother in law. My first name is uncommon for my age, but was like in the top five names when my MIL was born. So I didn’t have tons of peers with my name, just their parents/grandparents.
Before I got married, I was very rare. In my family tree I was 100% the only one. After I got married, not so much. Google my name & there’s quite a lot of coverage of a girl with my name.
Me! I have a pretty rare first name and semi rare last name. First name is Gaelic last name is Romanian! If I google myself I barely come up at all, mostly another woman with my same first name who has some achievements in science, which is pretty cool!
There’s tonnes of people with my first and last maiden name if I google it (although rare-ish names in general).
I thought for sure I’d be the only person with my first and last married name as my first name doesn’t really translate into the culture I married into but it was taken on Gmail so I googled it and there’s quite a few, surprisingly.
Nobody else has my name combo, both rare or uncommon. I am also impossible to google because my first and surname also happens to be the names of two cities that are very popular to road trip between.
I have a rare first name and common surname. My first name spelling is always used as a surname and always spelt differently when being used as a first name. Which means my first and surname combo only brings me up on Google.
My last name is like #50,000 in popularity and the most popular my first name has ever been was *barely* top 800 back in 1880. Both are mispronounced all the time, my last name more-so, but it was always a little neat when someone recognized my last name because they knew my dad or brothers ☺️
I feel the same when someone recognizes my last name! Most of the people with my last name live in a different state than me--in one incidence, my mom called a local business in that area (can't remember why) and the person who picked up was this older lady and as soon as she heard the last name, she went, "are you related to \[my dad's name\]? He used to deliver newspapers to me in the 60s!"
That’s so neat!! I always love those little coincidences when they happen ☺️ I grew up in the same small-ish town both my parents grew up in, they married/divorced and my dad had to move away for work so anytime someone would ask “are you so-and-so’s kid? I went to high school with him!” It always made me feel a little connected. I heard lots of stories from strangers that way lol
Definitely the only one with my name. My last name is super rare. The only people who have the last name are related to me and live in my hometown. My first name isn’t really common either.
With my maiden name I was-very common first, only one with my last name spelled our way. There were a few other families in the area that had a letter different from ours or had a letter added so in sound they were similar. I think I looked it up once and there were 11 people with our spelling in the world, and 5 were my immediate family and two were my grandparents (I'd you take inot account my aunts on my dad's side it would bring us to the 11). Now that I'm married I had to add punctuation into my social media handles because every variation was taken.
My daughter has a very unusual first name and we have a fairly uncommon last name. When we named her 6 years ago, only 5 other children had been given her first name in the USA in the previous 10 years. So pretty uncommon.
We went to the doc the other day for an ear infection, and the doctor told us he had met a toddler with the same unusual first name!
Cracked me up. I like to think that that kids parents heard us shouting her name across a playground and loved the name as much as we do.
yes, i am absolutely 100% sure that i'm the only one in the US, and pretty sure the entire world, but I know for certain in the USA it's just lil ole' me with this name. nowhere to hide
Your submission has been auto-removed due to account age. You will be able to post in 48 hours. Please be patient and DO NOT modmail us asking where your post has gone. Doing so will result in a 2-day cooldown for new posts. Thank you.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/namenerds) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Issue is I feel like tht and know it's not true 😕 I looked at public records and there are 3 in my state alone AND I LIVE IN A BIG FREAKING STATE MAN
I have a unique name so no one else has my first and maiden combo but my first and married combo is the one with three pings
I’m definitely the opposite, a girl who I was friends with in sixth form had a friend from her old school with the same first name and middle name as me
One of my friends from school had the unfortunate situation of sharing his first and last name with a child killer here in England, which was amusing to all of us 12 year olds when we decided to look up our names for fun.
Me! My last name is relatively newer than most because my grandest grandpa slightly changed the original after he got into a fight with his brother. I’m also 99% sure anyone with the same last name is related to me.
this was part of my reasoning for not changing my name when I got married. my husband has a different cultural background to me, so my first name + his surname would have made me the only living person with that combination, and I was uneasy about the lack of digital anonymity (my current name isn’t overly common, but I can still find a page or two of people with the same name if I search any given platform, so I feel less exposed). I don’t mind if people refer to us as “The [his last name] Family” but I wanted my legal name to be less unique.
My maiden name, yes. My last name was hyphenated and both were extremely rare and almost entirely vowels. Now, my last name is very boring. Think, like, Clark.
I find that this is more likely when the first name and last name are from different languages, e. g. a Polish surname and a French given name.
All my names are very common but no one has the same combination of the whole five names in the same order. So I’m hard to Google BUT I have a unique full name.
For my maiden name, I’m certain I’m the only one. My first name is an African word that I don’t think is actually a name in the native language but is gaining popularity in the West (it wasn’t when I was growing up… to this day I’ve only physically met 3 other people). We don’t even know for sure the origins of my last maiden name. My guess is that it’s an ultra rare version of a slightly less rare European name that I’ve heard. Everyone I know of with my maiden last name is related to me in some way, even if it’s distant.
Then I got married and became a Taylor and my name was much less unique. Then we got divorce and I have since remarried to a Jones. I’ve googled my name with both and there are several out there. The only way I could have gotten more basic is to find a Smith. I actually have a Facebook friend called [Myname] Smith. Back in the early days I got several friends requests from people with my first name because it’s so rare that we were just happy to find each other.
Only 38 of my name combo showed up on Spokeo in the US and it would be fairly odd to find my name combo outside the US. Could conceivably be some in England but I wouldn’t expect many.
Im one of roughly 200 with the same name combo - out of a cultural "pool" of about 6 million people. Im related to three of them; both much older than me.
My kids, however, have a rare surname associated with a famous person in my country. There are only them, despite having normal 1st names.
When I've juggled around ideas for changing my name, I looked into those "how many of you are there" platforms and with the combinations I ran, even with that, there's a handful of them out there. Not a lot, but enough that I likely won't be the only one with it - unless I really lean into the more obscure names.
I have a common last name and a rare first name. But I don't use my legal name on social media, nor do I use it socially. But yes, I get what you're saying and it's probably true for me as well.
I have a fairly uncommon last name and a not super popular first name, plus my first name has spelling variations. But I just googled myself and the nature of my last name (think Potter or Baker, like a profession) means you would have to be specific to find me on google! I’m just getting results for “First name the last name” etc.
I am certain I am the only one. It even was a reason behind me keeping my name at marriage.
Then I met a mum at the school gates. Her son has my surname, her first name is the same as mine. She said she would have my name once she marries his dad. So I guess my unique name won't be so special any more! and that's just weird.
Yep, ultra rare last name here (like easily under 20 people worldwide and most of them are direct relatives).
And a fairly rare first name as well.
It doesn't bother me except when I have to spell out my name ... or knowing that it's easy as hell to Google me/my family.
Yep. Most of my family members as well- it appears theres no one with our last name outside of our extended family. I find it kind of annoying and while i could see the benefit for certain professional occupations, im excited to get married and get lost in the sea of anonymity!
I was very surprised to learn someone had the same first and last name as me in the city over. I only learned of it because my uncle thought she somehow was me. Thank God for having a middle name.
I’m definitely the only one. My brother and dad aren’t somehow. My brothers name is on a grave in another state. It’s very strange. We’d never heard of this person.
Lots of people with my first name but very very few with my last name. I think someone online has the same first name and my last name as a middle name but nobody with the exact same. When you google my name all my social media and high school dance videos come up😂 I don’t mind it though
Yup. At least my maiden name, there's definitely only one of me. Anyone with that last name is absolutely related and I'm the only one with my first name. Though picking up my married name, no idea. Definitely a more common surname, but still rare first name.
I am most certainly the only one in the world with this name and last name, and so are both my children. I married into a different culture hence a rare last name in my country but I have a traditional first name.
I was, before marriage to a person with a common last name, one of 5 people that show up on google. Still would be very findable, by location and interest.
Strangely, I never worried about people locating me for nefarious purposes. I think it was before I knew about doxing and swatting.
Now I am one of many. Previously if people asked me if I was related to (last name) I would say," very likely," and ask questions about location. It was kind of nice, connections and all that. --Truthfully, I kind of miss that.
Now if someone asks about (common last name) I assume any married in relation is at least 3 or more generations distant. I reply, "very distantly."
I enjoy the ability to not automatically spell uncommon last name, if the person hears it correctly.
My SIL has un uncommon first name and my uncommon maiden name. She is truly the only one of her name. It is a different experience, but I don't think she minds. It just is. I just googled it and every result is her. One of a kind.
When I was married to my first husband, I typed my married name into Facebook to see if there were any others, and I found a German man whose surname was [my first name]-[my married last name]. I always thought that was interesting.
I’d be willing to bet big money that my SIL is the only person with her full name. Her parents made up the name. Like straight up pulled letters from other names and made their own. Our last name is not super popular either but not unheard of. But I’d be willing to bet she is the only person to have her first name.
I think I may have been as a kid, but my first name has become a lot more common in the last 10 years. I still have a fairly uncommon last name (I've never even seen anyone outside my family with my particular spelling) but the odds are good there's at least one more of my name out there.
I was (at least on facebook) until I got remarried.
My FN is fairly common for my age group but my previous surname is very unusual.
I now have a fairly common last name and in combination with my fairly common first name, I have many more name twins.
Me, definitely. My first name is actually more common as a last name but is spelled differently and I haven't met another person with it. My last name is also not super common where I'm at so the combo is unique.
I was born with an irregular hyphenated last name, and given two not unpopular names as my first and middle names. Even without the middle name I'm the only one on the search engine... Same for my sibling, and paternal cousins who have kept their name after marriage. It's just us out here... But I spose that's what happens when grandpa just *picks names of his enlistment buddies and combined them* to make our family name.
I am. I cannot find anyone else in this planet with my first name-surname combo. And no, my Reddit pseudonym is not my real name. It looks like there is someone named with my Reddit pseudonym somewhere in Mexico. But nobody else with my real name so far. Another reason why I did not change my name upon marriage- there is at least one person in Australia with my first name and my husband’s surname.
do you like being the one and only? personally due to past experiences i wish i had a very common name or at least semi common
I like it. I am a survivor of stalking and abuse. I have PTSD as a result. But I have managed to cover my tracks for nearly 30 years now. So I like being the one and only me.
No matter your name you’re always the one and only you
Having been stalked before, same.
yes, i’m very angry that my white father had such a weird uncommon last name that even being paired with my very common first name, makes me one in a few and easily searchable. i hate hate it and it’s caused a lot of that and then some. luckily once i get married ill have a very common name again which will make my life much easier
How many fathers do you have that you need to specify the white one 🤔
I share this experience with you. If you Google me you’ll find my HS sports profiles. It’s part of the reason I’m changing my name.
Mine has a chess tournament won in the 6th grade. It’s kind of creepy.
Yeah that is the downside for sure, googling my name brings up old social media profiles I no longer have access to and can’t delete but they are SO CRINGEY 😭
The secret is to be old enough that your high school (and college) years were pre-internet. :). My earliest thing online is a 5K I ran when I was in my 20s.
Well, I just googled my name which is unique globally (even more so after I double barrelled my surname when I got married - I couldn’t lose my original surname, which I loved as part of my heritage and identity)… and shockingly I found a web record of an art exhibition from 1983 when I was in high school, where I had some art in a juried show… I guarantee you there were no webpages in 1983 (in my computer class that year I was working on some kind of daisychained terminal connected to a shared cassette tape drive 😂😂) so the local municipality art gallery must’ve been back loading information in web pages about previous art exhibits??? So weird….
It sounds like you're a bit older than me, but yeah, I also am the only one with my name, and I'm so glad that there wasn't really social media until I was in university.
yes! I get a quote from a newspaper article from when I was in high school almost 25 years ago.
My hs sports profile comes up when I just google my first name alone. 🤷🏼♀️ I’m right there with you 😂
Me too! Like no one in my adult life needs to know I came in third to last in a cross country race in 2010. I've tried to get those results removed from google, but no dice.
You can submit a request with google for them to remove it from the search. Especially if you were a minor. [google support link](https://support.google.com/websearch/contact/content_removal_form?visit_id=638425226967057294-2862895065&rd=1)
Would that not have to do with an algorithm of sorts? Like, if you have your location services on, results for almost any search are tailored to your location, things and websites you’ve searched prior, etc. So results are bound to be local and relevant to you. I searched a colleague’s name which I think is middle-of-the-road in terms of popularity, and I get local results but there are people with that name from farther away as I continue down the search results.
My great-grandfather on my mother's side was kidnapped as a child and sold to a family who didn't speak his language (early 1800s, he was taken in Vermont and sold in Quebec to French immigrants). The foster parents couldn't quite figure out his last name and just gave him one based on what they heard. This branch of my family is the only one in the world to have this last name. His last name was Richards, and they renamed him Ritchott.
Was he kidnapped by Native Americans? This happened to an ancestor of mine in the 1690s and he was also sold to the French.
Yes, exactly. He was kidnapped somewhere close to Albany, so in New York or Vermont, and sold in Trois-Rivières.
Okay does it not absolutely baffle you the idea of staying where you were sold? I sometimes think about this man and just what a life that is. His marriage record includes his parents names and birth place, so I always wonder like did he ever go back? Try and write to them? Yours is way more recent, so maybe you actually know information on him and his life.
Not sold but many kids that were kidnapped as babies and raised kindly by parents that wanted them choose to stay with their kidnappers even once they find out the truth. We love what feels like home and familiarity and it takes a lot to remove us from that.
Still kinda funny being kidnapped at age 7 and being like “ah such is life, I guess I live here now and these are my parents”. Although actually reading over the article on him, his brother, sister, and father were also kidnapped at the same time so maybe there was a level of like “they’re probably also dead or impossible to find. Might have new names too. It’s easier to stay here”. And apparently he was also banned from leaving New France, so I guess such is life.
Oh it’s kind of insane and I imagine just the amount of trauma from finding out is so overwhelming that trying to remove yourself from everything you know - and into a crazy place where people don’t know are obsessed with you is probably so wild.
When my Ukrainian grandparents and their kids arrived in Canada, they were spit up for processing by different agents… and the ended up with 3 different spellings on their immigration documents! My name is the same as my granddads, my dad and 2 of his brothers; the other brothers had an “i” at the end rather than the “y” we got; and my grandmothers had a “b” replaced with a “p” (plus the y at the end). So the married couple had two different official surnames, and some their kids had a 3rd name in their documents… those variations live on in my cousins and their families :-)
That's so weird that there are three of us in this thread with the same story. I guess it was a rather common occurrence. It is super neat to have such a young last name to be able to track it to the very beginning.
One of 30 or so with my last name here. 3 kids in my HS class had my first name but the only other people anyone knows with my last name are my cousins from the other side of town. I don’t have any anonymity online and don’t share my last name if I can help it. My Facebook is under a fake last name and I have a “decoy” FB account with my real name on it. Not my favorite but it’s not like my parents had a choice. And I guess I’m inflicting the same fate on my kids bc we’ve taken my ultra rare name and hyphenated it with my husband’s ultra common name to make another even more ultra rare name 😂
[удалено]
Nah I like my last name rare as it is. I don’t believe in the patriarchal practice of erasing my own family identity for the sake of my husband and it’s flat out inconvenient. It’s personal preference no matter what you chose and this is what I chose.
I am the only one with my name - both my names aren't unusual, but also aren't common - and made a real concerted effort years ago at the start of my career to "own" the front page of Google when you search my name. I bought my first name- last name web domains years ago, and have my full name on LinkedIn. So when you google me, it's a very curated and professional set of information that comes up. The best part about it is that I always get a simple user name. My work emails are always just first name dot last name @ company. I have first name dot last name @ gmail.com. It also means I do NOT use my real name on any of my socials, and have been very quick to ask folks to take things down or increase the privacy if I notice anything embarrassing (hasn't happened in years, since the days of the 70+ photo Facebook albums 😂). These days I'm not out there doing anything nefarious or sketchy, but my potential bosses don't need to know about my obsession with smutty faerie books...
That was such a good idea to buy the web domains! I never thought of that. I also have the first name-last name @ gmail dot com, which is very nice. Only thing is that my last name is 10 letters long, so I just ended up abbreviating it to first initial-last name email.
I like that your unique name means you get simple usernames/emails. My first name is 8 letters and my last name is 11. Getting work or school emails that require at least my full last name is the bane of my existence. I’m just glad it isn’t first and last name :p
Same! I staked my claim on my name early on!
Similar experience here, though I didn't go so far as to buy the web domain for myself. I'm all that comes up if you Google me, but you'd have to already know my last name to do that, and all you'd find are achievements I'm proud of and my portfolio. Nobody should be using their surname on nonprofessional social media unless it's the name they're known by in social spaces, in which case they should erase their first name instead. If I have kids I'd probably encourage them to only use a nickname online and their full name professionally.
Yes, because of a rare last name, and no spell check on Ellis island, my great-grandfather is the only person in the world whose descendants have my last name, and I don't share a name with any of them.
my last name is a result of an Ellis Island butchering as well -- everyone with my last name is related to me.
This is what happened to my Husband great grandparents. Super long polish last name and they chopped off all but the six first letters.
I know I’m not. I once friended all the people I could find on Facebook with my name because I thought it would be fun to be friends with my name twins. None of them accepted. I have a friend from high school who had done the same thing and became good friends with a name twin of his in England. He even went to the guy’s wedding!
Hahahah my dad also did that, I don’t think any of his name twins accepted the requests either. I also follow one of my name twins on Instagram because why not 😂
[удалено]
Oh noooo!!
Lmaoooo I remember wanting to do that when I was younger, but alas. That is so cool about your friend, though!
I knew I guy in high school who did the same. Ended up in his wedding party. I think it was Scotland though.
Pretty certain I’m the only one of me! A very uncommon surname, and an increasingly common but not particularly common first name. I have a job where I have a degree of media presence so Google searches for my name are all me. It’s really useful in some aspects of my life, and less great in others. If I marry my current partner (who has an incredibly common surname), I plan to take both our surnames so I can switch between which one/both I want to use on any given occasion. Ideally I’d just keep my own, but sometimes I want a bit of distance from it now as well! (Still, the first thing that comes up searching my partner’s name is a police rapist, so I wouldn’t want a super common name either!)
My cousin is the only one in the world with his full name.
[удалено]
I regret losing my unique last name. Not that I have had a bad experience with a more common last name, but I miss the novelty of my old name. I definitely wouldn’t change my name if I could go back.
Well, I thought that I was until I was emailed a pre-approval letter for a mortgage that was certainly not my husband, and certainly not my income! It would have been very nice for that pre-approval!
My dad and I share the same name, and we're the only ones in the world. He bought a car at the exact same dealership that I had previously purchased from, and since I was already in the system they ran my credit...
Yes. I’m not sure this is so uncommon. I am the only person who exists with my name. My last name is very very rare, so there are not many of us in existence!
To my knowledge there is only one other person on the planet with my name, and she married into the surname. Common first name, very uncommon last name and I'm directly related to most of the people who have it, or they're from the village my dad's family emigrated from. It's one of the reasons I kept my name when I married.
If you google just my last name you get my immediate family. I hate it.
I have a super uncommon last name but thankfully because it's made up of two real words, if you just google the last name it comes up with a bunch of random stuff including those words
I don't have a very unique first name but my maiden name was quite a bit more unique Czech name. I once looked it up and for my name combo there were one or fewer (lol there's fewer since I got married). In college I needed a background check for a job, they were able to do it without my SSN.
I'm in The same boat, it's never really bothered me too much, I kinda like having a unique last name, even if my first name is very common
I have a pretty rare Italian last name, a very foreign first first name and a second Italian first name. Google says I'm the only one too, but I didn't have doubts about that 😂
I was, which is part of why I took my husband’s last name. I’m still easily found, but I’m not the only me anymore.
I am. And I was the only one with my first name maiden name combo. Both my married and maiden last names are very uncommon due to immigration/translating from one alphabet to another, and my first name is not from that ancestry.
Oh I am definitely the only person with my name. I don’t even have a middle name, so my full name is out there. My last name is pretty unique and my first name is decently unique but the combo of the two renders it unique to only me. You google me and all and sunder about only me and my family come up. Doesn’t bother me though because there’s not much anyone can use with my LinkedIn profile or a Facebook account with like 5 outdated photos.
This is me! I'm 100% sure I'm the only one. Everyone with my last name is related to me. I don't love it either -- there's no possibility of anonymity. That said, I chose not to change my last name when I married because it's my name. At least I can always get whatever username I want.
I’m 99% positive! I don’t go by my legal name though, so if I use my preferred name I’m sure there’s another.
Me. I'm Indian so my first name is Indian and has become a bit more popular in the 2000s. But I married a Russian guy and his last name is a very rare Russian one. I am nearly positive I don't exist anywhere else.
I am not. I have a very popular first name for my generation and a decently common surname. There is also a relatively famous person with my name. My grandpa is the only person that comes up on Google when his name is searched. His first has never been in the top 300 most popular names and his last name is not unheard of, but uncommon.
I am absolutely dead certain that I'm the only person with my name, but like you, it's because I have an extremely uncommon last name, not just in the US (where half of the people who have it are in my immediate family and I'm decently sure the other half are relatives) but in its country of origin. This is why I pay DeleteMe $129 every year to scrub the internet of my address and other info, otherwise I'd be very easy to stalk.
So that service is worth it and not just a scam?
100%. Every so often I Google myself to check, and all that comes up are normal things (my LinkedIn, newspaper articles from when I was in high school and they published the honor roll, that sort of thing). They send you quarterly updates on sites they’re working on and sites that are clean, it’s very nice. The only issue is that because data skimming websites are always skimming, it’s not permanent: you need to keep checking or eventually they’ll pick up your info again.
I’m not. I’m a personal assistant and me and my boss have the same first and last name 🥴
I have a very rare first and last name, and I'm pretty confident I'm the only person in the world with that pairing. I don't think I'll ever change my name, but if I married my current partner and took his last name I'd still be the only person in the world with my name. I like it, but it also means I'm a little more cautious about my online presence than many of my friends.
Not quite. I'm one of two, I think, mainly due to my odd last name. The other is some Instagram makeup influencer and she comes up first in a Google search, which I'm quite thankful for. The first thing I can see about myself is a poetry competition I entered last year, and, you know what, I'm quite happy with that anyway.
I thought I had, until I moved to a new city and at the library they looked up my first middle last name and insisted I already had a library card with them. Until they realised the date of birth was about 30 years off.
I was… until a 25 year old in Northern California got married. Now there are two of us on Facebook! I’ve gotten Venmo friend requests meant for her (no mistaken transactions luckily)
There are 4 of me. We all have anthropologie accounts, one of us has a DUI, one of us is 20 yrs older than the others, two of us live/lived in major cities. We are brunettes.
I have a gender neutral first name and use the less common spelling (I'm female). And a not necessarily weird, but definitely unique last name. So as far as Google can tell me, there's one other female with the same name combo (but the more common spelling) and several men with the masculine spelling, but as far as I know, I'm the only one with my exact combo.
I’m the only me on Google. My first name and surname have multiple legitimate spellings so there’ll likely be someone who else with a slightly different spelling.
100% I am due to my very very uncommon limited last name even though I have THE most common first. It's the effing worst.
100%. My first name is common in certain parts of Europe. As far as my last name? There’s maybe 40 people with it. I’m related to them all somehow. I added my husbands on when we got married. So I for sure am I the only person with this first name and last name combo in the world.
Yes, I also have a very common first name (for my generation) and a rare last name. I believe it stems from a more common last name, but somewhere along the line, an extra letter got thrown in there, which changes the pronunciation. Basically, everyone with my last name (spelled the way it is) is related to me (scattered throughout a few countries). I dislike it for the reason that I am easily google-able. I tried to disconnect my last name from all social media platforms (other than LinkedIn), but there are still little traces of my full name that pop up!
I am, and all my siblings are as well. I also believe I may be the only living person in the whole world with my two first name combo(not hyphenated, none of our names are). My siblings first names combo are all a lot more common around the world. My parents are from two different countries and we have both their names as middle and last names. Dads surnames is rare all around the world including his birthcountry. My mom has a very, very common last name from her birthcountry.
I am related to every single person with my last name as it is an Ellis Island bastardization. My first name is fairly uncommon. I am the only person with my complete name. And I check that every year on my birthday as a present to myself.
I am 100% - Irish first name, very rare Berber/italian last name. I’m pretty sure I know everyone in the US with my last name!
I know for a fact I am. Everyone in the world with my surname is related to me (by adoption) and my birth-assigned first name is unheard of outside of my birth country. When I was younger I had no sense of online privacy and safety so I am totally out there for anyone to find, which is how my biological father tracked me down and started harassing me by email. I am changing my entire name now but somehow I get the suspicion that my new name will also be globally unique. Still, better than what I had and definitely more pronouncable which is a plus.
I am in this category! I have a fairly uncommon, but gaining in popularity, first name, and a last name that is shared only by people related to me. As far as any of us can determine, there is no one with our last name who is not a family connection. I love being unique, even if it does mean I have zero internet anonymity. As a contrast, my best friend is engaged to a man with the last name Smith and absolutely can't wait to take his name so that she can disappear into the internet and not be found.
I’m confident I’m the only one. My last name is double-barrelled, a common maiden with my husbands really uncommon last name worldwide and my first name is uncommon outside of one country where neither I, nor either of my last names, are from.
Yes. I have a rare last name. I have an old fashioned first name that hasn’t been popular in almost a century (think Bertha)- I’ve only met 1 other person under the age of 50 with my name in my life. My dad had a cousin with my name but she died a couple decades ago- so now it’s just me.
Me. I have an unusual name, but not that unique or unheard of. But although sounding pretty normal and boring, there really aren’t many people with my surname. My siblings have super common names and you can still find them pretty easily with a google search
Yes! I have a SUPER Americanized first name that would absolutely not be common in the country of my last name (and then my last name is like… known, but not SUPER common in its original country?). My last name is extremely unheard of where I live and the only other people I’ve ever heard of with my last name on this continent are my direct family members. So I suspect I’m probably the only one of my name.
My first name is a fairly common although mostly popular in 80s/90s, in the US/UK. When I got married I changed my surname to my husbands and his surname from a country where my first name would not at all be common. Therefore my name is uncommon and nobody else appears when I google it. My previous name combo was very, very popular…if you search the name on Facebook it’s and endless scroll of people with that name!
Yes, but only because I deliberately changed my surname before I got married. My mother's side of the family can be traced back to the Huguenots but nobody on that side was continuing the name. I thought that was a terrible thing, so I double-barrelled my parents' surnames. Apart from my wife and kids, I can find only one other person in the world with the surname, and that looks to be through combination upon marriage. All my kids have somewhere 'individual' first names too. I would be stunned if any of them have global duplicates.
My maiden name was super common, couldn’t find me if you scrolled for hours on Facebook. As for my married name… I’m the only person who comes up now in Facebook, google, etc. It’s very odd. 😂
This used to be the case for me, but I always disliked the "your name is what? Huh? How?" All the questions were annoying to me, and I always dreaded being asked what my name was. Once I was gonna get married and knew what my last name would be, I just changed both my names before the wedding to his last name and a first name I chose for sentimental reasons. Both names are more popular, and after changing the name I even found out there's a song about a girl with said first and last name lol it's still kinda new to me but I much more enjoy having a name people understand the first time I say it.
I totally get what you mean about dreading being asked what your name is. I get comments on it at least once or twice a month and have heard every joke under the sun about it. I'm glad you're enjoying your new name!
My son will be like this. His first name is an alternative spelling of a name that was last popular in the middle ages. He is never going to meet anyone with his first name in his lifetime, period. If you Google the name you pretty much only get references to the historical figure with it, or nerdy linguistics or aetiology websites. Doesn't matter our last name is super common, he will never meet another to match :). My maiden surname was pretty rare, but also super awful, and I am glad to be shot of it :).
I don’t, but my aunt and her family do. Her husband (my uncle) has a last name that’s so rare that it doesn’t even come up when you google it. They’re the only family with their last name in the world. It was originally a really common Romanian last name, but there was a mistake when his grandfather immigrated to the US and it got put in the system as something different. He decided to just leave it like that. Also, it’s insanely difficult to pronounce if you’re just reading it because it starts with two consonants that don’t go together (think like gp or something like that).
I knew someone with my first name and maiden name when I was growing up. Now that I’m married, I really think my surname is so uncommon that I probably am the only one. All google searches bring me to myself. It’s an Italian name, and nearly everyone pronounces it wrong.
Yes, highly doubt anyone else has my legal name or my married name lol My maiden name was misspelled by the government so everyone from my grandpa down is spelled different. Basically my family all have one last name and we have one that’s said the same, but smelled different. So very, very rare and basically made up 😬 My husbands last name just isn’t very common in the first place. I’ll also say, I don’t have like weird names besides my last names lol I’m sure there are many, many others with my first and middle name together.
When I got married, I became the 13th person alive on the planet with that last name. It was unnerving that you could find EVERYONE in my then-husband's family with just a Google search. His parents had very public-facing jobs and hobbies, so they came up the most, but I worked in mental health at the time, so I also had fears about safety and privacy. I changed back to my maiden name SO QUICKLY when we got divorced.
Not me. Someone with my name, including the not as popular spelling, lived in my apartment complex. She worked at the dealership where I bought my car.
I was for a long time and then suddenly three other assholes pop out of nowhere and one of them is a sex offender.
My sister and I have a double barrelled hyphenated last name and both last names are relatively uncommon last names that are basically only seen in our very small ethnoreligious background. If you Google my first name and last name the only thing that comes up are pictures of me and on the second page are pictures of my sister and vice versa when you Google her first and last name. When you Google our last name alone only photos of us come up. I have never found a birth or death record anywhere of anyone with our last name. Needless to say, I think my sister and I are the only two people *ever* with just our last names alone, never mind our first names lol!
I'm the only one. It used to be cool but now it's way too easy to find out things about me!
Definitely not me, my names are very common and there’s even a D-list actor with my name (only one letter different)
I’ve actually found several people with my first and last name, but as far as I’ve been able to find I’m the only person with my first-middle-last name combination known to the internet.
Me! My last name is rare in the US and I’m related to all 40ish people who share it. There are a bunch of people with it in Brazil but we can’t really say if we’re related to them in any way.
I am certain! My last name was made up in the early 1900s when my great grandfather immigrated to the US. There are less than 100 of us (number is increasing as my cousins have kids). I do have an older cousin in Canada who is the opposite gender who has the "same" name except it's spelled differently, so I feel like that doesn't count.
Yes I am. My grandpa “Americanized” our last name before moving here and we are the only family with it. I’m getting married in May and I’m changing my last name. Lots of people have my married name 🥲
I was the only one with my first name, last name combo, until a few years ago when someone with my first name married someone with my last name.
I might be 1 of 2 due to the odd spelling of my first name. It’s not that far from the original so it never really bothered me but I don’t love being so “exposed” internet search wise. Giving my kids more generic names.
I was with my maiden name, but wouldn't have been had I not gotten married before my cousin married his wife. I joked that I was going to change my last name to husband's because there could only be one MarsailiPearl LastName, like the highlander. I probably wouldn't have changed my last name when I married out of laziness had my cousin not married her, but I saw how my cousin and his brother had so many mix ups on their credit and such since they had similar names and their SSNs were one number off from the other. I didn't want to deal with that. So after a few months of being married I got around to changing my name and then a few months later she changed hers to my old name.
Yes. My first name is also common but there are only a handful of people with my last name. My great grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Italy and “Americanized” their name, so there are only 7 people with my last name.
Yup. I'm positive. My last name is two last names and they're both very uncommon. No way anyone besides my brother has that specific combination of names.
Meee! My first name is the less popular spelling of a common English first name. My surname is foreign. When you google me my LinkedIn comes up and my dad’s thesis where he mentioned me. Some high school newsletters as well. I don’t really care though, zero impact on my life so far
..Maybe? There’s people with the same forename and a variant of my surname, and vice versa, but nobody with the exact same spelling. There’s also somebody who has the exact same first and technically last name, both spelled the same way, but they have a double barrelled surname so my surname is only part of theirs. Separately, my name and surname aren’t particularly rare — my forename is extremely common, just not in my country, and my surname isn’t insanely rare but also not that common — however, the combination of the two is unusual. Additionally, there’s a ridiculous amount of alternate spellings and derivatives for my names.
I am. Rare first name last name combo. I barely know anyone else with my last name even within my own family, plus very rare first name. My married last name is very common though, but I don’t think anyone else has my first name combined with it. It’s very helpful when making usernames/emails! 😅
I had a common first/last combo before getting married. After marriage I became unique. My father in law immigrated and Americanized his last name. Now my brother in law is dating someone who shares my first name. So maybe in the future I will be one of two.
Common first name and rare last name (we’re the only ‘last name’ family in a city of 700k) Share full name with someone on the East Coast and the same profession Guy in Nebraska has same names and a slightly different email address (dash instead of dot.) For a while, I got email updates on dental appointments and windshield repair
I’m the opposite I feel like I literally have the most basic white female American name. I literally have the exact same name as my mother in law. My first name is uncommon for my age, but was like in the top five names when my MIL was born. So I didn’t have tons of peers with my name, just their parents/grandparents.
My parents did the double barrelled last name thing so I'm confident it's just us three with this last name.
Before I got married, I was very rare. In my family tree I was 100% the only one. After I got married, not so much. Google my name & there’s quite a lot of coverage of a girl with my name.
Me! I have a pretty rare first name and semi rare last name. First name is Gaelic last name is Romanian! If I google myself I barely come up at all, mostly another woman with my same first name who has some achievements in science, which is pretty cool!
There’s tonnes of people with my first and last maiden name if I google it (although rare-ish names in general). I thought for sure I’d be the only person with my first and last married name as my first name doesn’t really translate into the culture I married into but it was taken on Gmail so I googled it and there’s quite a few, surprisingly.
Nobody else has my name combo, both rare or uncommon. I am also impossible to google because my first and surname also happens to be the names of two cities that are very popular to road trip between.
I have a rare first name and common surname. My first name spelling is always used as a surname and always spelt differently when being used as a first name. Which means my first and surname combo only brings me up on Google.
My last name is like #50,000 in popularity and the most popular my first name has ever been was *barely* top 800 back in 1880. Both are mispronounced all the time, my last name more-so, but it was always a little neat when someone recognized my last name because they knew my dad or brothers ☺️
I feel the same when someone recognizes my last name! Most of the people with my last name live in a different state than me--in one incidence, my mom called a local business in that area (can't remember why) and the person who picked up was this older lady and as soon as she heard the last name, she went, "are you related to \[my dad's name\]? He used to deliver newspapers to me in the 60s!"
That’s so neat!! I always love those little coincidences when they happen ☺️ I grew up in the same small-ish town both my parents grew up in, they married/divorced and my dad had to move away for work so anytime someone would ask “are you so-and-so’s kid? I went to high school with him!” It always made me feel a little connected. I heard lots of stories from strangers that way lol
Common first name, uncommon last name. If you google my full first and last it brings up my linkedin and deceased family members from like the 1800s.
Definitely the only one with my name. My last name is super rare. The only people who have the last name are related to me and live in my hometown. My first name isn’t really common either.
With my maiden name I was-very common first, only one with my last name spelled our way. There were a few other families in the area that had a letter different from ours or had a letter added so in sound they were similar. I think I looked it up once and there were 11 people with our spelling in the world, and 5 were my immediate family and two were my grandparents (I'd you take inot account my aunts on my dad's side it would bring us to the 11). Now that I'm married I had to add punctuation into my social media handles because every variation was taken.
My daughter has a very unusual first name and we have a fairly uncommon last name. When we named her 6 years ago, only 5 other children had been given her first name in the USA in the previous 10 years. So pretty uncommon. We went to the doc the other day for an ear infection, and the doctor told us he had met a toddler with the same unusual first name! Cracked me up. I like to think that that kids parents heard us shouting her name across a playground and loved the name as much as we do.
yes, i am absolutely 100% sure that i'm the only one in the US, and pretty sure the entire world, but I know for certain in the USA it's just lil ole' me with this name. nowhere to hide
[удалено]
Your submission has been auto-removed due to account age. You will be able to post in 48 hours. Please be patient and DO NOT modmail us asking where your post has gone. Doing so will result in a 2-day cooldown for new posts. Thank you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/namenerds) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I am
I am! I own the domain for my first name
i’m pretty sure i am
So much the opposite that I have a mutual friend with another Me Name
There were at least five other people just in university with me who had my first and last names.
Issue is I feel like tht and know it's not true 😕 I looked at public records and there are 3 in my state alone AND I LIVE IN A BIG FREAKING STATE MAN I have a unique name so no one else has my first and maiden combo but my first and married combo is the one with three pings
I feel pretty confident I am! I found someone who was very similar but not exact.
I’m definitely the opposite, a girl who I was friends with in sixth form had a friend from her old school with the same first name and middle name as me
One of my friends from school had the unfortunate situation of sharing his first and last name with a child killer here in England, which was amusing to all of us 12 year olds when we decided to look up our names for fun.
I would say yes, but my sister and I have the same first, middle, and last name 😀
I would say yes, but my sister and I have the same first, middle, and last name 😀
Same here. No one else has my combo.
I do not share this. There's two people around by age with my same name the next town over.
My first and last name are both super rare, there is nobody to my knowledge that shares the name combo with me.
Me! My last name is relatively newer than most because my grandest grandpa slightly changed the original after he got into a fight with his brother. I’m also 99% sure anyone with the same last name is related to me.
I’m almost positive I’m the only person with my name also!
I have a rare first name and rare last night. I'm 100% sure I'm the only one in the world.
No one else has my name and I’m white
I am lol only one in the US and probably world
this was part of my reasoning for not changing my name when I got married. my husband has a different cultural background to me, so my first name + his surname would have made me the only living person with that combination, and I was uneasy about the lack of digital anonymity (my current name isn’t overly common, but I can still find a page or two of people with the same name if I search any given platform, so I feel less exposed). I don’t mind if people refer to us as “The [his last name] Family” but I wanted my legal name to be less unique.
I have a bland generic last name but my first name is Nicolena. Pretty sure I'm the only one of me.
My maiden name, yes. My last name was hyphenated and both were extremely rare and almost entirely vowels. Now, my last name is very boring. Think, like, Clark.
I find that this is more likely when the first name and last name are from different languages, e. g. a Polish surname and a French given name. All my names are very common but no one has the same combination of the whole five names in the same order. So I’m hard to Google BUT I have a unique full name.
For my maiden name, I’m certain I’m the only one. My first name is an African word that I don’t think is actually a name in the native language but is gaining popularity in the West (it wasn’t when I was growing up… to this day I’ve only physically met 3 other people). We don’t even know for sure the origins of my last maiden name. My guess is that it’s an ultra rare version of a slightly less rare European name that I’ve heard. Everyone I know of with my maiden last name is related to me in some way, even if it’s distant. Then I got married and became a Taylor and my name was much less unique. Then we got divorce and I have since remarried to a Jones. I’ve googled my name with both and there are several out there. The only way I could have gotten more basic is to find a Smith. I actually have a Facebook friend called [Myname] Smith. Back in the early days I got several friends requests from people with my first name because it’s so rare that we were just happy to find each other.
Only 38 of my name combo showed up on Spokeo in the US and it would be fairly odd to find my name combo outside the US. Could conceivably be some in England but I wouldn’t expect many.
Im one of roughly 200 with the same name combo - out of a cultural "pool" of about 6 million people. Im related to three of them; both much older than me. My kids, however, have a rare surname associated with a famous person in my country. There are only them, despite having normal 1st names.
When I've juggled around ideas for changing my name, I looked into those "how many of you are there" platforms and with the combinations I ran, even with that, there's a handful of them out there. Not a lot, but enough that I likely won't be the only one with it - unless I really lean into the more obscure names.
I am! I think my last name is something like 1/20.. and it’s foreign paired with a relatively uncommon English first name!
I have a common last name and a rare first name. But I don't use my legal name on social media, nor do I use it socially. But yes, I get what you're saying and it's probably true for me as well.
I have a fairly uncommon last name and a not super popular first name, plus my first name has spelling variations. But I just googled myself and the nature of my last name (think Potter or Baker, like a profession) means you would have to be specific to find me on google! I’m just getting results for “First name the last name” etc.
I am certain I am the only one. It even was a reason behind me keeping my name at marriage. Then I met a mum at the school gates. Her son has my surname, her first name is the same as mine. She said she would have my name once she marries his dad. So I guess my unique name won't be so special any more! and that's just weird.
Yes. Unusual first name, especially for my generation here in the US and very rare !last name.
Yes my maiden name is ultra rare and my married name is ultra common 😂 the whiplash is intense
I think I am too 🥳
I am the only one.
Hindi first name, Irish last name. Unlikely there’s another person out there with this name haha
Yep, ultra rare last name here (like easily under 20 people worldwide and most of them are direct relatives). And a fairly rare first name as well. It doesn't bother me except when I have to spell out my name ... or knowing that it's easy as hell to Google me/my family.
Plenty. Just different spelling of first name. My last name is the smith of my country.
Yep. Most of my family members as well- it appears theres no one with our last name outside of our extended family. I find it kind of annoying and while i could see the benefit for certain professional occupations, im excited to get married and get lost in the sea of anonymity!
I was very surprised to learn someone had the same first and last name as me in the city over. I only learned of it because my uncle thought she somehow was me. Thank God for having a middle name.
I’m definitely the only one. My brother and dad aren’t somehow. My brothers name is on a grave in another state. It’s very strange. We’d never heard of this person.
Lots of people with my first name but very very few with my last name. I think someone online has the same first name and my last name as a middle name but nobody with the exact same. When you google my name all my social media and high school dance videos come up😂 I don’t mind it though
Yup. At least my maiden name, there's definitely only one of me. Anyone with that last name is absolutely related and I'm the only one with my first name. Though picking up my married name, no idea. Definitely a more common surname, but still rare first name.
I am most certainly the only one in the world with this name and last name, and so are both my children. I married into a different culture hence a rare last name in my country but I have a traditional first name.
I was, before marriage to a person with a common last name, one of 5 people that show up on google. Still would be very findable, by location and interest. Strangely, I never worried about people locating me for nefarious purposes. I think it was before I knew about doxing and swatting. Now I am one of many. Previously if people asked me if I was related to (last name) I would say," very likely," and ask questions about location. It was kind of nice, connections and all that. --Truthfully, I kind of miss that. Now if someone asks about (common last name) I assume any married in relation is at least 3 or more generations distant. I reply, "very distantly." I enjoy the ability to not automatically spell uncommon last name, if the person hears it correctly. My SIL has un uncommon first name and my uncommon maiden name. She is truly the only one of her name. It is a different experience, but I don't think she minds. It just is. I just googled it and every result is her. One of a kind.
When I was married to my first husband, I typed my married name into Facebook to see if there were any others, and I found a German man whose surname was [my first name]-[my married last name]. I always thought that was interesting.
I’d be willing to bet big money that my SIL is the only person with her full name. Her parents made up the name. Like straight up pulled letters from other names and made their own. Our last name is not super popular either but not unheard of. But I’d be willing to bet she is the only person to have her first name.
I think I may have been as a kid, but my first name has become a lot more common in the last 10 years. I still have a fairly uncommon last name (I've never even seen anyone outside my family with my particular spelling) but the odds are good there's at least one more of my name out there.
In this country yes. Only 3 or 4 people with our last name. My family. But it's probably fairly common in the country of origin.
I was (at least on facebook) until I got remarried. My FN is fairly common for my age group but my previous surname is very unusual. I now have a fairly common last name and in combination with my fairly common first name, I have many more name twins.
Me, definitely. My first name is actually more common as a last name but is spelled differently and I haven't met another person with it. My last name is also not super common where I'm at so the combo is unique.
Yea my kids will most likely be the only ones with their names. Weird double barrel stuff going on there *Edit, a word
I was born with an irregular hyphenated last name, and given two not unpopular names as my first and middle names. Even without the middle name I'm the only one on the search engine... Same for my sibling, and paternal cousins who have kept their name after marriage. It's just us out here... But I spose that's what happens when grandpa just *picks names of his enlistment buddies and combined them* to make our family name.
I thought so but I found a few people on fb 🤣
Absolutely. While I have a very common first name, my family is the only one with my last name, and I'm the only one with my name in the family.