Monday, July 04, 2011

Googling Your Name

It is, indeed a different world out there and the Google gets a fair share of the blame. From Periodic Boundary Conditions, the owner operator, a PhD candidate in materials science and engineering, explains why she will take her husband's name

Basically, it comes down to searchability and uniqueness, not a sense of traditionalism. My maiden name, at a school with fewer than 2500 women, meant I had a name double. I have no particular attachment to my maiden name, and having a common name can quite frankly be a pain. Mr.ME, on the other hand, has an Ellis Island hat name (i.e., completely made up), so it's very uncommon. Also, I haven't published anything yet, so that's a non-issue.

Put simply, searching my first initial and maiden name on Google scholar yields over 50,000 hits. My married name yields 12, of which 10 aren't actually the proper combination. The other 2 are from the 1950s

13 comments:

Pinko Punko said...

The band named "The The" now realizes their tragic mistake. Also, you see a large number of indie music bands with creative spellings. I feel somewhat convinced this relates to the searchability of those terms.

Rattus Norvegicus said...

I would think "Was Not Was" probably has a similar problem...

Nick Barnes said...

Those jokes are more than a decade old, and haven't worked for most of that time - Google copes fine with both The The and Was Not Was.

Nick Stokes said...

I was doing fine until CSI came along and I found out about identity theft. Now I google to find fan clubs around the world. And a recurring suspicion on blogs that I'm not real.

Oddly enough, periodic boundary conditions were a big issue in my earlier (real) life in computational fluid dynamics (orthodox and not so much).

J Bowers said...

Cue top track.

Anonymous said...

nick...

Which is the link between Nick Stokes (CSI) and periodic boundary conditions? I am quite lost here

thanks

jon

EliRabett said...

The mathematical boundary conditions used for analysis of fluid flow can be periodic (e.g. repeating regularly)

Anonymous said...

I have a google initial double who publishes in medicine, which is where about half my publications are. But just using my usual names (my first initial is for decoration), the first page is me. Hyphenating is also a good step to uniqueness. Nick, are you talking Navier-Stokes?

stewart

Anonymous said...

The first time I Googled myself -- after getting a mild 3rd degree after coming back from abroad -- I discovered that the top Jeffrey Davis was a murderer from Mississippi.

The issue of a woman keeping her name just came up in our family. Our daughter kept her maiden name. She must love ambiguity. When she was a baby, I called her pediatrician's office and asked for a test result for her. "For which one?" the receptionist asked. "We have three [insert daughter's name here]."

Jeffrey Davis

John said...

I was once at a university with another faculty member named Farley, and occasionally I got campus mail intended for him. I got a check intended for him, but only once.

The older generation who remembers FDR's political kingmaker James Farley has pretty much died out by now. Nobody remembers John Cardinal Farley, the Catholic Church's head honcho in NY City a century ago. I have not been asked if I'm related to the late comedian Chris Farley. And thank goodness nobody asks about convicted mass murderer Richard Farley.

-John "no relation" Farley

Anonymous said...

But John, what about the rusks?

Anonyspilopsyllus

Mark said...

For grins, I did a Google Scholar search on Steve McIntyre. The results were, shall I say, not unexpected.

Pinko Punko said...

Nick,

Itunes and many other programs do not.