Does Your Name Google Well?

[Naomi Hirahara]

I never thought that as a writer I'd be thankful for my name. Sure, I've been referred to in mystey programs as Hirahiraha (my last name is Hirahara) but that has been the exception more than the rule.

Then I read this article in the Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117856222924394753.html?mod=most_vi...

More and more parents-to-be are consulting Google to make sure that the names they give their children are relatively unique. How about your name? Do you share your name with a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, a carpet cleaning tycoon arrested for embezzlement, a has-been actress in Australia, or a star teen soccer player from Wichita, Kansas? Have you had to tweak your name a bit to stand out from the crowd? In other words, if we were to Google you, could we find you on the first Google page?

[Jordan Dane]

So you could step into a whole new line of work if this whole book gig doesn't work out.

(Amanda--You know I love you, right?)

[Pepper Smith]

Mine does actually come up on the first page. But I've also been amazed at the number of other people with my name out there.

[Karen Dionne]

I've been busy on the web for the past five or six years, so I'm lucky - even though google turns up several Karen Dionnes, all but three of the first 30 hits are me.

And if you google simply "dionne," I'm number three on page two - right after the Dionne quintuplets, Dionne Warwick, and E.J. Dionne - not bad!

So even if your name is common, as you increase your internet presence, you can increase your googleability.

[norby]

My real name consists or two very, very common names so googling me would be nothing short of a nightmare for someone. Adding in the city I live in wouldn't help either, there's more than one person with my name, and more than one spelling of both names. I grew up with a last name that no one could pronounce or spell properly (Theiss) and when I married a man with a fairly common last name I thought my troubles were over. Damnit.

[David Terrenoire]

Uh, no, that's Jim Born himself performing in the classic porn films, It Feels Like It's On Fire, Escape Drawers, and Walking Funny.

All gay, of course, but nothing you wouldn't show your mom.

If your mom was Courtney Love.

(I know Jim will see this because he Googles himself on an hourly basis. Hi Jim.)

[JackBludis]

The only Bludis that outdraws my website JackBludis.com is an Italian computer company whose name is just Bludis. My story "Blondes, Blondes, Blondes," on ThrillingDetetcive.com is catching up to my website. Looks like ThrillingDetective.com is a place to be.

[Karen Dionne]

Yeah, it's cool if you can get your name on a site that's already ranked high on google. I was interviewed on Susan Henderson's LitPark last week, and now when you google my name, poof - there her interview is on the first page.

[Daniel Hatadi]

I deliberated about this when I started on my first novel, eventually deciding that, yes, my real name was fine, and unique. Glad I did so, because it's all over the web, and the only other Hatadis are minor Croatian chess players. Crimespace has moved up to be just behind my website and blog in terms of Google hits as well. That feels good. Now all I have to do is finish a novel and get it published.

That should be easy, right?

[Julie Lomoe]

I'm thankful for my last name, which is relatively unique. I had an amazing example of how unique last weekend at Malice, when I was on a panel with Larry and Rosemary Mild, whom I'd never met before. She asked if I was by any chance related to Wallace Lomoe, the well known editor of The Milwaukee Journal in its heyday, and I replied that he was my father. Turns out her parents and mine were close friends.

Lomoe is a Norwegian name which was originally written with umlauts, and my immediate family are the only ones I know of who have it in this country. Only problem is that people frequently change the spelling to make it more like what they perceive as French.

My legal last name is Lomoe-Smith, but I don't use the Smith for my creative output, lest I be confused with Julie Smith - whose New Orleans mysteries I like a lot.

[Naomi Hirahara]

What a wonderful moment at Malice!

[J.D. Rhoades]

Google my name and the title of my first novel and you end up with multiple links to a shockabilly band called Rhoades D'Ablo and The Devils' Right Hand.

I really need to see those guys some time.

[Naomi Hirahara]

Kismet. Maybe they can do the musical score for your book video?