Monday, October 30, 2006

I Don't Exist?

I clicked a link to a website that tells you how many people have the same name as you in the U.S. I thought it'd be cool to see how many people share my exact name. First, I typed in my maiden name. 14 people have my maiden name (first and last). Next, I typed in the name I use when I am out and about with my family. This is not technically my married name, because my legal name is my maiden surname and my husband's surname, with no hyphen-- just a space between the two. Anyway, I entered in my first name and my family's surname and it told me there are 2 people who have this name. Interesting. . .

So I wondered if anyone else has my exact, legal name. Does anyone else share the name Karen H_____ S_____? Here is the result that I got back:


HowManyOfMe.com
LogoThere are:
0
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?


Yeah. That was the result. Seriously. ZERO. That totally sucks. It means that someone, somewhere has not entered my real name into whatever database this website is using correctly. I know my social security card has my correct name. I know we file our taxes with my legal name every year. Heck, all my fingerprint files and our adoption paperwork used my legal name, so what gives?

Sigh. So apparently I don't exist. . . Oh well.

Update
So I thought I'd look up my kids' names to see how many of them there are. This is what the screen says for both of them:
  • There are 0 people in the U.S. named Casey (or Marcie) S______.
  • While both names you entered were found in our database, neither was common enough to make it likely that someone in the U.S. has that name.

Aha! They aren't searching a database at all. They are just doing a statistical analysis! When I looked closer, this is what it said about my (legal) last name:

  • One or both of the names you entered were not found in our database.

So apparently the probability of my kids' names existing is virtually zero, but my name really does not exist. Go figure.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

check out www.800ussearch.com. you'll find yourself there. i use them from time to time to check out people and they're pretty good. even though sometimes you need to follow up with an email to get some additional info. dino from dallas