job-searching when you share a name with a porn star

by Alison Green on June 25, 2014

A reader writes:

In the last year or two, a woman who is about eight years younger than me has become a somewhat well-known porn star. My name is her birth name, not her stage name, but for whatever reason, they’re usually mentioned in the same breath/line. It should be pretty easy to separate the two of us (by age and, uh, specialty/interest), but I’m concerned that a cursory Google in response to my applications might be hurting my chances.

I added my own domain to my resume/cover letter header. Do you think that’s enough, or do you think it’s worth adding a little P.S. in my cover letters to point out which of us I am? I’ve been watching this situation approach for a couple years with growing dismay. Sigh.

I don’t think you need to. I searched for your name, and I actually had to add the word “porn” to my search to find the other person. Plus, both your first and last name are reasonably common.

You’ve done the right thing by getting your own domain with your name, and there are so many other search results for your name before we get to the porny ones that I think you’re fine. If that weren’t the case, my advice would be for you to build up a solid Internet presence of your own so that it’s clear you’re a separate person from your name doppelganger, but I think you’re already fine.

I wouldn’t do the P.S. drawing attention to the situation; that risks just creating weirdness where I don’t think you need any.

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    1. Rachel*

      I heard of a guy doing that to distinguish himself from a criminal. He put the M. I. on everything career-related.

  2. GrumpyBoss*

    I don’t want to minimize the OP’s problem, because it is a legitimate concern.

    But I do want to thank her. I’m having an awful day, and this note was a bit of a pick me up. I’m just picturing the look on the faces of the stuffy people I’ve known in HR who love to Google before they call.

    1. Clinical Social Worker*

      Awful days abound. I’m glad it made you feel better.

      I’m often mistaken for other people (by face, not by name) and it can cause some issues to say the least.

  3. JC*

    I feel like if I did a google search for someone who applied for a job at my organization and a porn star came up, I would automatically assume that the porn links were a different person because it would seem so implausible that someone who was in my field also did porn (even if it is more plausible than I think). I think it would be more concerning if you shared a name with someone who has something kinda bad on the internet, but not outlandishly bad, because then others would be more likely to assume it was you.

    1. Abradee*

      Yes, same with my type of work. If I was impressed with a candidate’s credentials but a porn star came up first in my Google search of the name, my first thought would likely be, “That’s probably someone else,” and then sympathize that they share the same name. I’d make my search more specific (like Googling the name and the field of work) to get on track.

    2. Persephone Mulberry*

      I share a name with a woman who has been implicated in a JonBenet-like missing child case. It’s very clearly not me because she’s in a different country, but I do occasionally wonder if it gives other people pause for a moment.

      1. Kelly L.*

        I share a name with a cheerleader at a large southern university. Googling me, you might think I’m much prettier than I actually am. :D

        1. manybellsdown*

          My real name is actually quite common, but the one you get the most hits for is a professional poker player who lives in Los Angeles, where I also lived until very recently. I kind of wish I was her!

      2. Simonthegrey*

        My husband shares a name with someone who was on trial for killing his whole family. However, because we are in the midwest and it happened on the coast, we didn’t figure there was too much overlay and you had to add “court case” to the end of the name to get the other guy.

    2. cuppa*

      Isn’t there also a Seinfeld episode where Elaine dates someone with the same name as a serial killer?

      1. Melissa*

        Really Friends? I thought that was entirely pre-Internet, but then I Googled and it did go to 2004, so I guess maybe the later years.

    4. EvilQueenRegina*

      Yes, I thought straight away of the other Ted Mosby when I saw the title of this!

  5. BRR*

    To add an additional peace of mind, many employer’s might block that type of content if people search your name.

    Also if you use LinkdIn, make sure you have a picture. That way if the porn star’s picture surfaces they can see it’s not you (I’m assuming you aren’t identical twins).

    1. Turanga Leela*

      I was going to say this. Make your LinkedIn page searchable for the public on Google, and use a very professional photo of yourself. Depending on your field, you could also have a very professional twitter account or blog. Having your own online presence will make it clear that you and the porn star are not the same person.

      Also, thanks for sharing, because this is a very funny problem (although I’m sure it’s a pain for you).

  6. Ash (the other one!)*

    This begs an interesting question for hiring managers — how often do you google your applicants? What do you google with especially with common names like the OP’s?

    FWIW, when I was hiring for my program assistant I did search for her on facebook between interviewing and offering her the position, but more out of curiosity than it affecting whether or not she would be hired.

    It is an interesting question though. One of the reasons I’ve kept my maiden name professionally (despite changing it legally, which creates some interesting conversations when the background check comes up) is because there are a ton of people with name “Ash Married” (and nothing but my wedding announcement for me) as opposed to when you google “Ash Maiden” you get everything relevant to me.

    The one thing I’m considering is that perhaps I should switch to “Ash Married” as the articles and such you find about me point to a very specific field that I’m trying to branch out of… but again, do Hiring Managers really google their applicants?

    1. GrumpyBoss*

      I once googled a candidate because he had an odd last name, and the origin of it intrigued me. Someone with the same name turned out to be quite prolific on a white supremacist messaging board. I eventually found a link to his web page that contained additional racist material and pics that helped to verify that it was a same guy. Helped me avoid a bad hire into a diverse environment! This was about 10 years ago, and I’ll admit, that since that paid off, I did google everyone. If it was a common name, I’m pretty sure I didn’t spend a ton of time on the activity.

      Now, I don’t have the time. I rely so much more on who they are connected to in LinkedIn, or I tend to hire people I know, or are recommended by people I know. If I came across someone with a non-existent LinkedIn profile and happens to be working at a company where I don’t have any connections in my network to probe for details, maybe then I’d Google. But more likely than not, if I really liked him/her, I’d trust the background check process.

      1. Turanga Leela*

        It boggles my mind that he would post with his real, full name on a white supremacist website.

        1. GrumpyBoss*

          I’m glad he did. He saved me a potential hostile work environment situation because I did have a fairly diverse team.

          I chalk it up to being in the early 2000’s, and some people just didn’t think that much about their digital footprint.

          Then again, maybe he was just a moron.

          2. PM*

            Why do you assume that people who differ from you politically are unable to act in a professional manner in the workplace?

            1. Ginjury*

              This isn’t about politics. This is about an unfounded hatred or disdain of entire groups of people. To be so vocal about a widely discouraged belief shows a lack of judgment and the potential for trouble interacting with people of color in the workplace.

              1. PM*

                So would it be acceptable if corporations blacklisted people who were active in the communist/socialist community?

                1. Ginjury*

                  Do socialist/communist communities operate on “an unfounded hatred or disdain of entire groups of people?”

                2. GrumpyBoss*

                  Oh come on now. You are not seriously going to compare being communist/socialist with being a member of a group that propagates fear and violence against an entire race of people with having a different political ideology, are you?

                3. Monodon monoceros*

                  Communism and socialism are political parties. Ginjury explained quite clearly that white supremacy is not politics.

              1. PM*

                But the definition of racism is politically defined and it has (and will) change through history.

                Or do you claim that it is purely objective and handed down by a deity?

                Im reminded of how psychiatry was used as a tool to eliminate political opponents who contradicted official dogma in the Soviet Union.

                Dissidents suffered from “Philosophical intoxication”.

                1. Cat*

                  Please explain how an individual not hiring someone for a particular job because they publicly state that some people are inherently inferior based on their race or ethnicity is equivalent to the State using psychiatry as a tool to silence disagreement against the State.

                2. Canuck*

                  If you philosophically believe that racism is defined by politics (as opposed to hatred of a group due to race or ethnicity), then there is no point in discussing this further.

                  I for one completely disagree with you – racism is not simply a differing political opinion, but pure hatred for no justifiable reason.

                  But this is a massive derail from the topic, so I won’t post anymore on this.

        2. Lucy VP*

          Many times people with these type of viewpoints don’t find their views to be something shameful or in need of hiding.

    2. Anon*

      If it’s a common name, I’ll usually include a company listed on their resume, college, or even their job title. Maybe include a geographical region .

    4. BRR*

      I would Google with middle initial if you have it. Besides that a lot of the same as anon above. I would do their specific city and if it’s a super come name their industry. Also if I was looking for an applicant named Jane who works in Chocolate Teapots I would end up here and just think she’s terrible. I also check Google images because sometimes (rarely but it’s happened) they are links to articles that don’t’ show up in the web results.

      1. BRR*

        I just thought of another one; if the first part of their email address isn’t their (i.e. BRR) I will google that part without the @domain. I found one candidate’s okcupid profile that way.

      2. olives*

        I giggled quietly at the idea of someone getting dinged for being a Jane busy making Chocolate Teapots. Somewhere is a poor lost soul with an Etsy profile wondering what’s keeping her from her dream job!

        1. BRR*

          What do you mean I didn’t get the job because I cast a curse on another employee?!?!?!

    5. Maude*

      I usually don’t google candidates. However, once I had a candidate with an unusual sounding name and for some reason I googled him after my time with him and while he was still in the building interviewing with the director of the department. His name immediately came up as indicted for the murder of his wife. There was a picture in the news story confirming it was the same guy. He didn’t get hired. No idea why he was applying to jobs at this point in his life. He came to us through a third party recruiter whom I hope will google candidates from now on prior to sending them to us.

      1. CTO*

        Now, to be fair to the candidate, being charged isn’t the same as being found guilty, and spouses are often a primary suspect whether or not they actually committed the crime.

        But assuming that the right guy was charged, it’s good you Googled!

        1. Ash (the other one!)*

          I think this exact reason is why Europeans now have the right to expunge information from Google (crimes they were accused of but later acquitted)

        2. Joey*

          This is a bit random, but the law absolutely allows you to hold conduct against someone regardless of whether it results in a conviction. In other words if it appears that the person engaged in the conduct he was arrested or indicted for I can absolutely hold it against him if its job related and relatively recent. Sad to say that I’ve had to do that. Its a myth that you have to wait to see if the person is convicted in a court of law before you consider it.

          1. Mpls*

            Umm…EEOC is pretty explicit about an arrest or charge record not being sufficient in and of itself to make a decision to not hire someone. That is not a criminal record. A criminal record is based on a conviction – you know, due process and all that. There are state laws that allow you to ask about criminal history (though some of those are changing), but don’t let you disregard someone just for having a criminal record.

            1. CA Anon*

              Indictments are different than arrest records, though. There’s a much higher burden of proof with indictments than with arrests.

              1. Jon in the Nati*

                No, there is not.

                The burden is exactly the same: probable cause. Indictments are far different from convictions, but they are not different from arrests in terms of the quantum of proof required.

            2. Joey*

              Well in my case the indictment was just one aspect that I used to determine that he probably did do the crime that he was indicted for. So to be clear it wasn’t the indictment that I fired him for, it was the behavior that led to being indicted and his credibility surrounding it.

      2. Fabulously Anonymous*

        How do you know the charges weren’t dropped? Maybe someone else confessed to the crime? These things just scare me: all it takes is the whiff of something improper and you can never be employed again and are forced to live off the state.

      3. EvilQueenRegina*

        My grandad once read his newspaper and came across an article about a man with the same name as my uncle (his son) who had been arrested for murdering his wife. I never thought about it from the point of view of anyone Googling my uncle and finding that at the time!

      4. Stephanie*

        I Googled the incumbent for a role I was interviewing for (just to get a sense of his background and what the HM was looking for). Turns out the reason the role was open was because he had been arrested for shaking his baby to death. Yeah, not happy news. It was very sad to find that out, but I’m glad I found that before asking why the role was open.

        1. Ruffingit*

          I would have been interested to know if they would have told you the reason. I’m guessing they would have said something about him needing to leave for personal reasons or something like that.

    6. ThursdaysGeek*

      Hmm…maybe I should include my middle name on my resume, so potential employers can (maybe) find me. Fortunately, without the middle name, I appear to be working in a college, as a journalist, and other professions that won’t cause a second look. With the middle name, I appear to be dead!

          1. Jennifer*

            If she was a zombie, she’d probably want to eat the other coworkers’ brains (TM Jonathan Coulton). If she was a vampire, on the other hand, she’d make a great work-at-home night shift worker with a TON of experience…..

    7. Jen*

      I google candidates just to see what’s out there about them, find their linked in, read their twitter (if they have one). I’m generally pretty lax about what I find though. For example, at a past job, someone googled a candidate and found one photo of her on Facebook (in the middle of hundreds of other photos) where she’s laughing uproariously holding a cake shaped line a penis at a friend’s bachelorette party. He was like “We shouldn’t hire her” and most everyone disagreed, fortunately. But I thought it was interesting that he was so shocked by it that he considered not hiring her.

      1. Biff*

        It’s one thing if EVERY picture is a night out/everyone very obviously drunk/over-sexualized. But one penis shaped cake? Really?

    8. Barney Stinson*

      When I was filling contract positions for clients, I always did a search. I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to vet contractors, so this was one more way I could comfort myself I wasn’t sending a whole pile o’ crazy to a customer.

      Now that I’m hiring for my own team, I still do. I had a candidate who was PERFECT in every way. Before the second interview, I did my customary search and found out very quickly he was lying to us. We still had the interview and asked him about it, but he admitted to the lie.

      I will always do a search.

    9. Sara*

      I actually googled my name + my professional license, and surprisingly the very first picture that comes up is my linked-in profile pic

      1. jmkenrick*

        In order to get accurate results, it can be best to open up a private browser.

        Google customizes its search results based on you a bit (for example, if we both searched Trattoria, the first results would likely be close to us, since Google “knows” where we are and assumes we want local responses).

        1. olives*

          Little-known feature of Google’s interface – after you search and press “Enter”, and get your page of search results, there’s two small buttons in the top right corner of the results page, just to the left of the gear for advanced search settings. There are two icons next to each other, one of a person and one of a globe. By default, the person button is active, indicating that you would like to see personalized (referred to as “private”) results. If you click the globe button, you get a page back that looks like the generic non-personalized results the rest of the world sees.

          The private browser thing works too, this one just might be a bit faster for some people =)

          1. Clever Name*

            Wow, I just did this and included the metro area in which I live, and I found a bunch of reports for public agencies I’ve written. Plus my LinkedIn and Twitter pages. I’m actually surprised.

    10. Diet Coke Addict*

      I was a little surprised to come across a discussion on the Net where many people found it unethical (and declaring it illegal, sigh) to google applicants for a job. I assumed it was common, at least with applicants you’d be wanting to interview, which is why I’m always careful to Google myself regularly, ensure my facebook and social media aren’t linked to my name or viewable by the public, and that positive search results (university things, articles I’ve written) are coming up.

    11. Meg Murry*

      We rent apartments to college students (or recent grads) and I’ve done a quick search (usually on Facebook and the college website), mainly just to see if we have any friends in common so I can get a personal opinon. I’ve never NOT rented to anyone based on their web presence, but if I see a lot of partying pictures come up, we usually place extra stress on the “this is a quiet, family neighborhood” aspect when showing the unit and those people tend to self-select out of renting it.

        1. Anon*

          I don’t see anything about family structure, but I do see people self-selecting out of a quiet neighborhood that is quiet/low-drama because kids are around. Where’s the discrimination?

          Somebody said the same thing when I looked at the apartment complex I now live in. Can’t say I ever thought for a second about whether that meant I was welcome as a single person. I love how quiet this neighborhood is.

        2. Meg Murry*

          We are not discriminating against people with or without families. We are trying to say to 21 year old college students “This is the kind of neighborhood where your neighbors will call the cops on your party the minute the noise ordinance is in effect at 11 pm. If you want a party-friendly atmosphere with lots of other college student rentals, you should look elsewhere.” We also run multi unit rentals, so it is important that new tenants don’t upset current, quiet, good tenants that pay rent on time and don’t destroy the house. Again, all allowing for self selection out – not us saying “we don’t rent to students, you can’t live here”

        3. NoPantsFridays*

          In some areas (such as the one I used to live in), you can’t say anything to prospective tenants like family friendly, family neighborhood, most of the residents are retired/empty nesters/college kids, etc. The mere mention of demographic factors qualifies as discrimination under the city’s laws. You can’t even say something like “This building might be unsafe for young, unsupervised children due to the large, open swimming pool and the steep, treacherous, crooked spiral staircase,” (city was full of old, “vintage” buildings that were beautiful but potentially dangerous. As well as newer high-rises.) Under the law this is viewed as urging people with children not to live there, which the city says is discrimination based on family structure.

          My former city has by far the strictest housing anti-discrimination laws I’ve seen. I thought it was OTT, personally. I guess they are trying to avoid the gentle nudging, “we don’t welcome your kind here…”

          But, landlords/ property managers would say illegal things anyway. As a prospective tenant, I used the information to select myself out from some buildings. I was in college myself while I lived there and I’d select away from fellow college students — I wasn’t interested in the late night party noise. I also selected myself out of “family” buildings/neighborhoods because, at least in my former city, it was code for shrieking children. If I can hear children shrieking while I’m seeing the apartments, they’ll be shrieking when I’m living there. I get that kids will be kids; that doesn’t mean I have to live with them. Unfortunately, I haven’t found that neighborhoods with kids are quiet, actually quite the opposite. Maybe it was just that city, I don’t know — but I was able to avoid those buildings I thought would be unsuitable for me personally.

          There were several large hospitals near my university, and I ended up living in a building full of medical staff. It was great. Tenants would come and go at all hours (shifts) but you wouldn’t know it by the silence.

          Anyway, in some areas it’s discriminatory (legally speaking) to make even the slightest mention of family structure or demographics, but landlords/ property managers do it anyway, and it’s a good early warning system for tenants.

    12. Turtle Candle*

      I’m curious about this because my name is so incredibly common that I’m essentially impossible to Google–even my small-town hometown had two of us, and my large university has had several, including a professor. (You can Google me + my current employer and get just me, but the information is basically restricted to staff pages and that sort of extremely neutral content.) Claiming the domain that goes with my name (and with its common nickname) is a lost cause; they’ve been tied up since the late 90s, when I was still in high school.

      I’m not really worried about being confused with someone else (it’s immediately evident that the first 40 Google hits for the name are 35 different people–none of them me, although I do start turning up 2-4 pages in), but I’ve always wondered whether and how much it would hurt me that I wouldn’t be readily findable via generic searches.

    13. the gold digger*

      A hiring manager told me he had googled me and had found the pieces I had written for the editorial page of our local paper. He said he didn’t read them because he didn’t want my political opinions to influence his decision.

    14. T*

      I recently interviewed for a seasonal job with the National Park Service. The interviewer had read my thesis, which had found online by googling me. When I asked him about it, he told me that they (the NPS) google every candidate they consider.

      From the other side, I google hiring managers/interviewers and the person who is vacating the role I’ll be filling if that information is available to me. I generally include the name and city or organization name to narrow it down. Sometimes I’ll find some background info on LinkedIn or a press release or some other useful bit. If not, it’s no big deal, but at least I have a feel for the person I might be working for. I assume it’s the same from the other end. By the way, the person I spoke w/at the NPS said it’s surprising what people have about themselves on the internet. It should come as no surprise that what we do outside work can be easily discovered by potential employers.

  7. Who are you??*

    I search my own name every so often just to see what’s out there. My sister in law (brother’s wife) shares my name and she’s a successful realtor and then my married name is shared by a very succesful woman so I feel no matter which way I go for mistaken identity I’m good! ;)

    1. PJ*

      I do this too. My namesake is a respected artist with quite a following. I’m practicing the “nod and smile” response.

    2. Mints*

      The top rankings for my name is a triathlete! I think it’s clear it’s not me, but I’m not in a huge rush to get myself more famous. I’m perfectly happy being mistaken for an iron (wo)man participant

    3. Calla*

      I google myself occasionally and usually it’s just FB/LI profiles and news articles/blog posts about me. But I did it just now and found out a couple websites like pinterest are pulling up with my full name *and* a username I use for things like tumblr (as in it doesn’t directly pull up tumblr, but if you noted the username for that site, then searched for that username, you’d find the other sites)… yikes, gotta fix that!

      1. Jill-be-Nimble*

        I found out that the first thing that comes up when I google my chosen nickname (think Jill Nimble instead of Jillian) is not my website, but an old defunct Pinterest account that I had forgotten about–wherein the description of me was a placeholder I had put that said, “I like weird things and beer!” I deleted the account and set up a new one and changed everything and have been trying to get my personal site up in the rankings, but this description still comes up in the cached pages as the first site!!!

    4. Meg Murry*

      Don’t forget – google search is somewhat customized based on your cookies and web history. I get slightly different results when I google myself and I’m logged into my own google account than I do if I use an incognito browser or if I google myself from the public library (when not logged in). So if your results look good to you, try googling from a public place to make sure that isn’t skewing your results.

      1. Elsajeni*

        I was thinking about that as well, and thinking that it might actually be leading the OP to worry more about this than she needs to — if she’s clicked on a few articles about the porn star in the process of learning about/fretting about the situation, then the next time she searches her own name, Google is slightly more inclined to think, “Oh, you were just reading about [porn star], weren’t you? You must be looking for another article about her!”

        1. danr*

          Use alternate search engines such as Ixquick or DuckDuckGo instead of Google as a sanity check. These search engines don’t retain search histories.

      3. olives*

        Posted this above too, but since it came up again here – there’s actually a button to turn off personalized results and see what other people see. It’s at the top right of the Google search page, click the globe instead of the person.

    5. Kelly L.*

      If my brother marries his GF, she will share my name, and then the entire Internet will think I can’t spell. ;)

    6. NoPantsFridays*

      The only other hit for my (unusual) name is actually very much like me. Same field, only a year older, and had one similar internship while in college. But we went to different schools in different countries and we currently reside in other different countries. We work for different companies, too. So, it should be clear that my name buddy is not me. But even in the case of mistaken identity, we’re not that different. haha.

  8. Sunflower*

    I’ve googled lots of people for work before and usually get a ton of results so I’ve gotten accustomed to googling name + location they are in. If your name is pretty common, sometimes I’ll still get multiple results so it wouldn’t be surprising if HR does this when they google candidates too.

    1. Ash (the other one!)*

      When you google candidates, what exactly are you looking for? I guess beyond curiosity, it seems to me the serious stuff — criminal record etc. — would come up in a cursory background check.

      2. Anon*

        Recently dealt with an employee who was bad mouthing the company on their social media sites. I wouldn’t hold it against the individual, but it would be something to note.

        1. Joey*

          Why wouldn’t it be held against them? I’m guessing you probably don’t want them badmouthing your company. That’s absolutely a legitimate ding.

        2. Anon*

          What did you do about this? Or what would you suggest to someone who knows an employee who’s doing this?

          My friend frequently complains about work on Twitter, with her real name, and I don’t see it ending well.

      3. Jamie*

        I do this, too – although I don’t spend a lot of time on it.

        Just to see if there is anything glaringly inappropriate jumping out at me. I don’t dig that deep so if a cursory check shows things like what Grumpy Boss mentioned upthread, or wildly inappropriate things just out there that’s a sign of judgement being an issue.

        If your facebook is locked down I don’t care about it, but if it’s wide open and there are pics of you at a Klan rally you can’t expect it not to factor into a hiring managers thinking.

        And I’ve seen stuff like on tech message boards where people use their own name and it’s thread after thread of them being an argumentative total PITA for a span of years. That wasn’t a candidate – just someone I used to know – but my first thought was he’d in IT and he’s not smart enough to use an alias while posting like a whining tool bag all over professional forums?

        1. GrumpyBoss*

          I have a friend who likes to look at a candidate’s Yelp reviews if they linked them to their Facebook account. He doesn’t care where the person eats and such, but he strongly believes that if someone who routinely posts a mostly scathing, 1 star reviews, it could be an indication that this person is a big complainer/whiner.

          I personally don’t have the time to dive that deep, but I think there may be something to it.

          1. HR “Gumption”*

            Interesting on searching yelp reviews, don’t know if I’d do it but there may be something to her method.

          2. Cath in Canada*

            I’ve written a grand total of one Yelp review, and it was for the place that served me raw chicken (not undercooked – raw) just a couple of months after I’d recovered from a bout of food poisoning that put me in the hospital. It was… ranty.

            1. GrumpyBoss*

              I would write a negative review in that case too!

              I use Yelp occasionally, but it is usually to write glowing reviews. I have a friend who owns a small bar and grill, and has felt first hand impact to his business because of a couple of negative reviews. I like to counteract some of the negativity.

              Something has to be really bad for me to give a 1 star review. Food poisoning and a hospital visit would do it.

      4. ExceptionToTheRule*

        I do what Sunflower does and I don’t know that I’m looking for anything in particular. More or less, I’m looking for what GrumpyBoss detailed: something outrageous that would send up a red flag.

        I don’t really care if there are pictures on your Facebook page that show you drinking or things like that. Snorting cocaine, maybe, but not normal, legal activities.

        1. Sunflower*

          I don’t do the actual hiring but my boss doesn’t have the time to google people so I am really just looking for big red flags- like if you’re posting offensive material publicly. Same as ExceptiontotheRule- we don’t care if you’re drinking, I don’t even care if I find some bad pics of you in college.

          I google location only because it’s easier to sift through the results- I’m not digging deep for info. Unless you have pages of awards or articles about you, I’m probably not going past the first results page

      5. Turanga Leela*

        I look candidates up on social media to see if I know people in common with them. If I do, I ask the people for informal references. I also Google for the reasons people have mentioned. Sometimes you find indicators that the person is smart, thoughtful, and committed to the kind of work you do. Other times, you learn that the person posts photos of their friends doing bong hits and writes online l!K3 tH!$. (This is not the kind of image we want our employees to project.)

      6. books*

        Poor choices on a non-locked down facebook or twitter feed, publications, volunteer work, etc…

  9. KSA*

    It could be worse – there’s a registered sex offender with my exact name (including middle initial). I don’t have a common name either. Fortunately I’ve done a decent job at keeping an online presence and we don’t look anything alike.

  10. Bend & Snap*

    Sidebar…we googled all of our proposed baby names and one of our favorites turned out to be a porn star AND a teenager who murdered her parents.

    As for the question at hand, it’s definitely smart to Google people in the running for a job. So much of life happens online these days that it’s a quick way to see what kind of judgment people display.

    1. GrumpyBoss*

      That’s a keeper. Usually it’s either/or. So rare to find a name that encompasses different types of notoriety!

    2. Elysian*

      I would never have thought to Google a potential baby name even though I google myself all the time just to check in. I tried out a possibility and there’s a person who bills herself as a medium/clairvoyant with that name. I can live with that. I think I would pick a different name if it was porn star/murderess.

    3. sophiabrooks*

      Wait- a porn star who as a teenager murdered her father, or 2 different people?

    4. Camellia*

      Rita Rudner did a hilarious take on this some years ago. Said they were down to “Nefertiti” and “Jethro”.

  11. steve g*

    Some sort of pornographic picture comes up on my computer everytime I search for any person. That is your Google trash. So I hope must people just ignore those pics!

    1. NoPantsFridays*

      Wow, really? In all the googling I’ve done, casually and for work, I’ve never once run into a pornographic picture accidentally.

      Maybe it’s pulling from your search history…

        1. NoPantsFridays*

          I don’t think it is. IME, in order to get anything remotely pornographic on google, you have to actually add the word “porn” (or something similar) to your search query, as Alison did. It doesn’t come up by accident — you have to go looking for it. Again, this is just my experience with google.

  12. Jennifer*

    Slightly different take, but what about when you have the same name as someone else in your organization? I’m not worried about anything unsavory coming up in a Google search. I am a little worried about other possible confusion that might make me look either unfocused or untruthful, particularly if someone, recognizing that both my first and last name are common, searches on name + city or name + employer, or reaches out to someone in their network who also works at our (large) organization for a reference, and they don’t realize they’re talking about a different person entirely.

      1. Anonathon*

        Or the whole middle name. I have a very common first/last, but with my middle name in the mix, I am usually the only one that you find in a quick Google search.

        1. Jennifer*

          In my own writing, on my resume, etc. I do use the full name, but asking everyone each of us interacts with to always refer to us as Jennifer Middle Last instead of Jennifer Last doesn’t seem terribly plausible. I’m thinking more like: I’m applying for a job at Vanilla Teapots, and the hiring manager sees I work at Chocolate Teapots and calls someone he knows at Chocolate Teapots to ask about Jennifer Last, and said contact raves “Oh yes, Jen Last is great, I’ve worked with her on lots of teapot inspection projects over the years, as she’s the primary teapot inspector, blahblahblah” Hiring manager is looking down at my accounting-focused resume and cover letter and wonders why I’m trying to pass myself off as an accounting professional when I’m really a teapot inspector. Would that disconnect be a red flag, or would it just be something they’d ask me to explain if my letter and resume on their own indicated a good fit?
          (Luckily the other Jennifer Last is not, as far as I can tell, a flake, or I’d be more worried about that sort of thing. “Oh, Jen Last? She’s nice, but….)

          1. Meg Murry*

            Does your company have an email address directory and do you get each other’s emails? I know there were at least 3 pairs of duplicate names at my last company, and the way I know it is that I always had to ask “Is Bob Smith in accounting Bob.R.Smith or Bob.V.Smith?” So if you have a shared name, chances are your shared acquaintances will know if they’ve ever had reason to email you at work.

            1. Jennifer*

              Alas, I think the vast majority of people attempting to email either of us are either clicking on a mailto: link on a subject-specific webpage, replying to an email from us, or accepting Outlook’s autofill when they’ve received an earlier email from one of us. We do occasionally get each other’s email, but not terribly often, and mostly it’s me getting her mail, since I have the firstname.lastname email address and she has a number stuck on the end. I did once get an email asking me a question about my subject area, with an “oh, and while I have you, can you explain how I’d do X” referring to her subject area. So, this person clearly thought we were one and the same!

      2. AnotherAlison*

        I think it helps on a resume, and maybe a person googling would use the middle initial, but I can’t see Jane Hiring Manager informally contacting her neighbor at BigCompany and asking about Jennifer S. Jones. Even if Jane referenced the middle initial, the people you work with probably don’t know your middle initial. (I’m assuming. . .in my field, you kind of do because you initial a lot of things.)

      3. Fabulously Anonymous*

        IMO, some people are not very detail oriented and wouldn’t catch such a small difference. For example, my mother is Jane L. Doe and several years ago her wages were garnished, even though the actual debt holder was Jane I. Doe. It took months to straighten out.

    2. AnotherAlison*

      This is why Google and other informal reference checking is dangerous. All summer, I have had deal with confusion between me, Alison “Smith,” and intern, Alison “Smyth”. There is also an admin in the dept. named Alison. It’s like a game of who’s on first. I’ve got no solutions for this, just commisserating.

    3. AAA*

      I just did a round of hiring and ended up hiring two people named Daniel J. Smith. (names changed to protect the innocent) The “J” stood for two different middle names, thank goodness, but it has caused a significant amount of confusion between HR, training, payroll, scheduling…etc.

  13. Adam*

    Tangentially related: I used to work for someone who had the same name as an actress who, while not in porn, was known pretty much only for her “assets”. It was a restaurant, and at one point she decided to put up a board of the names of everyone who worked there and how long they’d been there. So for her it was “Owner’s Name since 19##”

    People would come in all the time, look at that and go “So she owns this place eh? Does she come in a lot?”

    It was rather funny how often the employees and customers would engage in this conversation not realizing they were talking about two different people.

  14. LBK*

    In my experience, Google intentionally preferences anything other than porn over porn and even sometimes excludes adult results without a more specific query (like adding the word “porn” to the search as Alison did), even with SafeSearch off. I’d think the only exception is if it were a really famous porn star who should be the obvious first result, like Ron Jeremy or something.

  15. Sascha*

    My husband shares the same name (and spelling) with a local felon who was in the news a few years back. He’s been thinking about starting a LinkedIn page anyway for job hunting purposes, this gives me one more reason he should do it.

    I share my real name with a famous actress from the 80s, though my surname is one letter shorter (no final “g”). Even when I google my name with the proper spelling, Google still gives me tons of pages for Famous Actress. I’m not sure anyone would have the patience to sift through all those results. So thanks, Famous Actress! :)

    1. jmkenrick*

      He should! It’s free, pretty easy, and you don’t necessarily have to maintain it much after the initial set-up. But he should make sure to disable the e-mails, so it’s not constantly bombarding his inbox.

    2. JMegan*

      There’s an easy way around that, if you want to produce search results with only your name. If you use the – (minus) sign, it will exclude the other person from your results.

      So if you search for “Sascha Actres”, it will produce results both for you and for the other person. But if you search for “Sascha Actres” -Actress it will produce only your name (unless of course there is another Sascha Actres out there!)

      I don’t know if you actually need to know this, of course. But it couldn’t hurt to know that other people know it, and might be framing their searches that way.

  16. Jamie*

    It’s funny – when I google myself I find this woman who couldn’t be less like me if you were making Opposite Me out of a kit.

    In her 20s…I’m …not.
    She’s a seriously accomplished athlete – I don’t like to walk to my car.
    Completely different ethnic group, etc.

    What’s funny is I was asked about it because she has her (our?) name on her twitter as do I – and her profile pic is something adorable with animals…which would totally be a safe bet for me if you didn’t know better.

    But mine is for work and doesn’t include a lot of NSFW pics, and tweets are being so wasted. So someone work related mentioned it to me, because they had googled and thought it was me until they read it and then were pretty sure that unless I was leading the most well hidden double life ever it probably wasn’t me posting those things.

    Then there is another one, same name, who is a teen and a huge one direction fan…so you know, totally me. :)

    It is weird that even when you have an uncommon name this stuff creeps up. That’s why my linked in and resume have my maiden name as well, even though I just go by my married name. The odds of someone pulling off my full name would be so miniscule I’d have to meet that woman.

    1. Diet Coke Addict*

      In a weird coincidence, my middle-aged executive dad shares a name with a perky, bubbly, Christian-fundamentalist church worker and mom of young babies, somewhere in the South. People searching for my dad get an odd mix of press releases about him, and Pinterest pins regarding ideas for baby snacks and Vacation Bible School.

      Similarly, I shared a maiden name with a woman in my parents’ area, with a prolific Twitter and many, many marathon times. I would not a run a marathon on pain of death, so I began using my middle initial to differentiate us.

    2. Ellie H*

      My same name-er is actually in the same general field as I am (higher education), which I think is funny because I actually have a pretty uncommon name (I am near certain it is just the two of us). However she’s Canadian and middle names are totally different.

    3. Parcae*

      I used to worry that my googleganger and I would cause problems for each other later in life: same middle initial, same college major, similar interests, and close to the same age. It was sort of fun to track her life and guess at whether a random stranger could tell us apart.

      Then she died in a car crash. The first ten hits for my name– with or without middle initial– are reports of her death, and have been for years now. I feel vaguely awful every time I google myself.

      1. Meg Murry*

        I have a same First MI Last doppelganger in the next town, and one of the final straws in me choosing a different OBGYN is that they regularly pulled her file instead of mine for my appointments. I would say “so what about my test results from last month” and they would say “test results? You havent been here in 6 months!” It wasn’t the only factor, but it was certainly a problem. So if you get frustrated when the doctor office asks you to tell them your birthday 12 timesin one visit – its better than the alternative records mix up.

        1. Parcae*

          I did! Though by all accounts she was a good person and much loved, which is some comfort.

    4. Diane*

      There are five women with my first name, middle initial, and last name (same spelling). Between us, we are a realtor, ob/gyn, UU minister, author, goat farmer, and me. I think one or more double up (goat-farming author or minister . . . not sure). I need one more to become an astronaut, and all my dreams are complete.

  17. Cath in Canada*

    This reminds me of the time I was trying to find contact information for a scientist my boss wanted to invite to give a seminar, who turned out to have the exact same name as a young, attractive actress who I hadn’t heard of before.

    The first two pages of hits were all about the actress, so I started to type in the scientist’s field of research to narrow the search. Unfortunately, she worked on breast cancer and I had Google Instant search enabled, so when I started to type the additional search term and got as far as “Firstname Lastname breast”, the pictures that popped up before I could start typing the word “cancer” did not exactly improve matters. I was just glad there was no-one standing behind me…

  18. AAA*

    I share the name of a somewhat well known (though not in the US where I live) female professional wrestler. Think WWE professional wrestling…the spectacular sort. My name is definitely not common. While I now have a big enough web presence that I’m definitely the first person who comes up, right after college this was a concern. I established my own domain and made sure to get on my grad school’s website with a short bio that made it clear I wasn’t the wrestler. I also have an alert that tells me when someone googles my name, which is pretty fun.

    2. Jamie*

      Are you using a separate app for this like Brand Alert, or is it through google alerts itself?

      Because I thought google alerts worked if there was a click through to a site you were monitoring, but not just the search itself.

      Am I the only one kind freaked out that people will know I googled them out of bored curiosity?

      I haven’t seen my extended family in over 20 years – some guy at work knows someone with my cousins name so out of curiosity I googled…and yep, it’s him. Googled again when I got home to show my kids because they’ve not seen them since they were babies and he looks like my brother so thought they would be interested. Then googled another cousin because I wanted to see if she aged better than me…because yeah, I’m petty. Then regoogled her to show the kids later because I was bored.

      OMG my mother’s family is going to think I’ve lost my mind and am sitting in a basement somewhere stalking them.

      Ex-boyfriends, old friends…holy crap Alex Van Halen is going to get a restraining order out on me.

      I am not googling anyone for personal curiosity anymore ever.

      1. AAA*

        Sorry, no! I should have been more specific. It doesn’t show when they google me–just when they click through to the links about me (that I know are at the top of my google results).

        Google your exes with impunity!

        I only get what country the click-throughs are coming from; no more detail than that. I usually get a flurry of these after I send out a good job app or have a good interview, so I find it encouraging. On the other hand, I have a (mild) stalker who lives in Thailand, and I also know when to do extra lock down on my internet presence when I see someone has been checking out my google results from Thailand.

      2. Lisa*

        I am more freaked out that someone searching for me on facebook, will suddenly become a friend suggestion of mine even though I supposed to not be searchable with my privacy settings.

      3. Ellie H*

        Academia.edu tells you when someone clicks through to your profile, what country he or she is in and how they found it (i.e. by Google search). It used to tell you what keywords the person used, which was the greatest thing ever, but most regrettably, they have discontinued that.

  19. Lisa*

    Who else has a name doppelganger?

    I am a magazine editor and a teacher. I still get the teacher’s email, but she is getting married soon so not for long!

    1. AnotherAlison*

      I probably have thousands. I’ve even encounterd 3-4 of them IRL. Just recently, I contacted a new dr. for my son and completely confused him over email. His wife has the same name. . .

    2. Sascha*

      There are at least two other “me’s” out there using Gmail, like I do, and I get email for them all the time! One is in Arizona, the other is in Illinois. Sascha Arizona is very involved in high school football booster club, and Sascha Illinois um, well she has a lot of student loans she needs to take care of. I’ve got some really sensitive information because of this! If it looks like it came from a real person I will always email back to let them know.

      1. Lisa*

        lol, yeah my ‘mom’ keeps sending me pictures of end tables and furniture I might like. Also, I got a new job! I had to actually contact that one to tell her she got her offer letter.

        I would get medical info from parents of the teacher’s students. Email chains from parents are so awful. I had to contact the principal to make them stop using her gmail which was one middle initial off from mine email.

        1. AVP*

          Heh, my mom is constantly emailing some poor guy in London who has a very similar name as my brother (and had the good sense to set up his gmail username in a logical way, which my brother did not).

        2. Ellie H*

          I once mistakenly emailed someone at my university whose email username was “mom” (his initials)@university, while trying to email . . . my mom. I had her saved as “Mom” in my address book and at some point sent an email to “Mom” (probably forgetting to click on the address when it popped up) and it sent it to him instead. It was very embarrassing . . . twice! He sent me a very nice email to point it out though.

          1. Cath in Canada*

            HA! I wonder how many emails to other people’s moms he gets every day? :D

            I’ve had a couple of email address autocomplete near-disasters – one of the professors I work the most closely with has an email addy with the same first few letters as my friend and colleague from my team, and I’ve almost invited the prof out for lunch or after work beers, or sent him links to silly cartoons, about five or six times now!

      2. EvilQueenRegina*

        A former coworker of mine used to get emails for some guy with the same name – he replied to the sender telling him he had the wrong Apollo Warbucks, but either the other Apollo was a joker or there was something funny going on there because the sender didn’t believe him when he said he was the wrong person. He kept sending the emails for ages before he eventually accepted he had the wrong guy.

    3. Diet Coke Addict*

      I tried to comment regarding this earlier, but it looks like it disappeared? I’m not even getting a “Held for moderation tab?”

      Anyway, my (middle-aged, executive) dad has a name doppelganger in a perky, bubbly, super-fundie Christian church worker and mom of young babies, somewhere in the South. A search for that name reveals press releases about my dad, and Pinterest pins about baby snacks and Vacation Bible School ideas.

      My name doppelganger is a girl close to my age who’s a hair stylist and runner not far from where my parents live! Since I do not style hair nor do I run, I started using my middle initial, which ensures that my articles pop up for my search.

      1. Diet Coke Addict*

        Apparently, my husband is also a computer engineer, several high school students, several Australian dudes, and a co-ed adult hockey player in Vancouver. Exotic lives!

        1. WanderingAnon*

          I’m a nun, a star water polo player, gerontologist, professor and a high school student in the UK. You wouldn’t believe the e-mails I’ve gotten for all but the gerontologist (e-mails from folks wanting the high school student never failed to crack me up). I usually e-mail real people back to let them know I’m not who they’re looking for.

          I’ve never had to fear anyone finding anything off about me when googling my name (even with middle initial). Those folks seem to be really great people. :)

          1. Lisa*

            A coworker, had the same name first, middle, last and age (year, month), and lived in the same town briefly as a guy arrested for growing pot. I love when the mug shot comes up. And alerts, hey, matt..you got arrested again…

      2. AVP*

        When you said “super-fundie” I read it as the person is very involved in cleaning up environmental waste areas.

    4. Elizabeth*

      I have about half a dozen that I’ve been able to positively identify. One is a paralegal in Los Angeles. Another is a university professor in Minnesota.

      A third is married to a man who has the same first & last name as my husband, and we all lived in the same two towns at the same times. I actually share a birthdate with her, as well, as well as an anniversary date & middle name. The only identifiers we don’t have in common are our maiden names and our social security numbers.

    5. J-nonymous*

      I feel like I’m giving away my identity here, but whatever. I share a name with a writer of erotica. I have a name very similar to a writer of paranormal romance novels. And finally, I share the name with a cookbook author.

      Lots of writers with my name. Maybe I chose the wrong profession.

    6. Frances*

      Not only do I have one, she grew up in my hometown, went to my dance school (the first year their computer system thought I was simultaneously enrolled in baby ballet and the advanced high school class), and then wound up as a student at the university where I worked 2,000 miles away. Our first and last names aren’t that common (and we don’t appear to be related), but it does mean if you google me plus my hometown or me plus that university you’d still get results for both of us. I got a new manager once at the university who emailed my doppleganger for a week and thought I was ignoring her.

      The sad part of that story is that her father had the same name as my uncle and he was killed in a horrible accident that made the local news. A large number of my grandmother’s friends called her to give their condolences.

      1. AnotherAlison*

        I had my parents call me one day to tell me that my son’s daycare lady had died while we were on vacation. Her name was something like “Linda Pitkin”, so not common, but not particularly unique, and the woman who actually did die was from the same town, same age range. I was pretty ticked off at them for sending me into a panic without verifying anything. My parents are well-known for overstepping their boundaries, and I think they already had some casseroles made for her husband (I’m exaggerating, but not by much).

        1. Kelly L.*

          A friend of mine was going to college at the same time as another girl with the same first and last name. The other girl died (I forget how) and they published a story about it in the paper, but they either didn’t have a picture or got mixed up and used my friend’s picture (I forget which). The looks she got when she walked into class the next day…

    7. PJ*

      One of my namesakes (first initial, middle initial, last name) plays soccer in the UK. Somehow I ended up on the referee email list, and I get all the announcements about training and meetings and such, with references to the refreshments being servied (what the heck is a butty?). I tried for a while telling them they had the wrong person, but I heard back from a surly brit who insisted that I MUST REMAIN ON THIS LIST! Okie dokie. I know how to use a delete button.

      2. duschamp*

        In the UK, “butty”=sandwich

        As a rule, people don’t just reference a “butty”, but specify the type/filling, i.e. a “bacon butty” (bacon sandwich). Also, for some reason “butty” tends to indicate a sandwich made out of a bread roll or burger bun rather than sliced bread, though not always.

        Bonus British-ism: bread rolls/burger buns = “baps”, but “baps” is also a slang term for breasts.

    8. Peep!*

      I’m not a name doppleganger (except when people INSIST on spelling both my first and last name wrong — then I’m a famous dead musician, sigh)….

      But my non-professional email address has a certain country’s national bird in it. I get misdirected emails all the time — I’ve gotten orders for sewn patches expected to be filled, and I’ve been signed up for that country’s business tax newsletter. It’s weird.

    9. Jen RO*

      I get emails for a Jen Walker in the US and another Jen in India… at least. They are not doppelgangers (my real name is not even close to Jen), but I’m getting really tired of getting other people’s mail! US Jen even managed to register her B&N account on my email. I reset her password, logged in, and she had her credit card saved there… I could’ve gone on a shopping spree. (Of course, I simply deleted her card from the account.) I could’ve also used her Netflix account, also registered on my email, but my IP was blocked (Netflix is not available in my country). I wonder if she ever realized what was going on…

    10. SaraV*

      I have an extremely common maiden name, and in my smallish hometown of 7500, there were three of us, but I was the only one with my first name without an “h”. One was three years younger than me, and the other was old enough to be my grandmother.

      The only time this bit me was when I was in high school. The younger one left school for a doctor’s appt, and returned for classes for the rest of the day. I left school early to attend a funeral, and did not return on that same day she had the appt. I got called down to the attendance office the next day, asking why I didn’t return to school. I got a chance to see the computer-generated report, which included our student ID#. I calmly said “That’s Sarah MaidenName, the freshman.” (I was a senior) I’m not sure why they didn’t catch that right off the bat because our student ID# started with our graduating year.

    11. Emily, admin extraordinaire*

      I have a very uncommon last name, but due to a single ancestor who emigrated here and then proceeded to have 13 sons, there are a fair number in my immediate area. There are also only so many names that sound good with it (and they all tend to be fairly short and traditional– Thomas, Benjamin, Mary, etc.), so there’s at least one other me out there in the same area, and several more if you Google the name. Most of the first few links are me, though, since I’ve had a fairly wide online presence since the early 00’s.

      But there’s a funny wrinkle– I also have an uncle who has written a lot of books and given a lot of motivational talks, many of which have been recorded and sold, who’s fairly famous in this area, and throughout the church that I belong to. So I’m often asked if I’m related when people hear my last name. My cousin, whose mom was my uncle’s sister and therefore has a different last name while still being his niece, was the same age and went to the same high school as one of the other Emily Lastnames. Once they ended up in the same class together. While everyone was introducing themselves, this Emily Lastname stood up and said “Hi, I’m Emily Lastname, and yes, [uncle] is my uncle.” My cousin couldn’t believe her ears. For one thing, those of us who really are related don’t just go volunteering the information (but are happy to reply when asked), and for another, this Emily Lastname is most definitely NOT a cousin. She was too dumbfounded to say anything at the time, but later confronted the girl. The imposter!Emily said that telling everyone that my uncle was her uncle was easier than saying that he was actually her second cousin once removed. Which is ludicrous. The thing is, even after this imposter!Emily knew that a genuine niece of my uncle was a classmate and knew exactly what she was doing, she didn’t stop doing it. We later learned that her mother did the same thing– claimed to be my uncle’s sister-in-law. This was over ten years ago, and for all we know, they’re still doing it. I told my cousin we need to collect on the decades’ worth of birthday and Christmas presents we never received from this so-called aunt and her family. :P

    12. duschamp*

      I have a near infinite number of name dopplegangers, especially since my surname is reputed to be the most common one in the world. The most famous one was an actress who was on Knott’s Landing and about a million made-for-TV-movies.

      On the up side though, my name doppleganger status got me on the gameshow “Win Ben Stein’s Money.” It was a “famous names” episode, and I was up against a Rick(y) Nelson who was an aspiring pro wrestler and a very white accountant named Miles Davis.

      I did not win.

    13. Cath in Canada*

      I’ve met two of mine for my maiden name – one of them lived in the same university apartment building at the same time as me, and the other came up to my poster presentation at a scientific conference grinning and waving her name badge at me. There’s also an Irish TV and movie producer who’s worked on some fairly big-name stuff (Far and Away, Father Ted etc.)

      My married surname is a bit less common, but there’s an (apparently) famous church organ player (Catherine, not Cath) who shows up in my Google alerts from time to time. And my sister-in-law, who chose not to change her name, has the same name as me, except she’s Kath rather than Cath. Because we’re both Facebook friends with a lot of the same people, we get a lot of each other’s friend requests.

      Overall, though, I’m usually the top hit for the shortened version of my name, thanks to using my real name for my writing and social media activity.

      1. AnotherAlison*

        Re: Sister-in-law. . .this has happened a bunch in my family. My mom is Jeannie, her s-i-l is Jean, and her m-i-l is Jean (all with my dad’s surname). For a while, I had two cousins who were both Rachel Dadsurname, but one is now an ex and the other took her partner’s name. They both lived in the same tiny town and were about the same age, so I’m sure that was confusing.

        1. Cath in Canada*

          Our two families have a ridiculous number of first names in common. My sister and hubby’s other sister have the same name; my sister’s boyfriend has the same name as one of hubby’s brothers. The aforementioned Kath is married to a guy with the same name as my Dad, and hubby has the same name as one of my uncles. The wedding was *very* confusing.

    14. ExceptionToTheRule*

      My name doppelganger is dead. She was killed in a car accident in another part of the state.

      The day after it happened it was a very slow news day and our morning show ran a story about it. It freaked the entire crew out because they all knew I’d been at work the night before.

    15. Aunt Vixen*

      My doppelnamer was someone who shared my first name and changed her last name when she got married to someone who shared my last name. I was in graduate school at the time, and she worked at the medical center – and her colleagues could. not. be made to understand that although her name had changed, her e-mail address had not. If you did a People search on our full (well, first + last) name, I came up first – and a random Firstnamer came up second and a random Lastnamer came up third, and Aunt Other Vixen came up fourth. But I got her e-mail all the time, because apparently her colleagues would go “hm, I know she got married, what did her e-mail address change to?”, [search], “aha, here she is – Aunt Vixen, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences”, [click]. I was still getting her e-mail a year after I graduated.

      1. Aunt Vixen*

        I also share a name with a politician in another state and with a woman whose name comes up with a lot of articles about the murder of her seven-year-old daughter (I don’t remember if she was accused of the crime or if she was just keeping the story going in order to get justice). I have to use a middle initial to be on the first page of google hits, and even then I’m not the only one.

        My brother shares a name with a couple of much-better-known people in different fields, so he has no reason to ego-google at all.

    16. Beebs*

      I think I might have told this story on here before . . . there are two people with my name in the US (probably anywhere). The other is a college student on the opposite coast–clearly not me, even if you’ve never met me. A few years ago, I had to give a talk to a local group and the person whose job it was to introduce me for some bizarre reason searched me on Facebook, even though I had given him a short professional bio. So he introduced me with all of these things that had nothing to do with me–bands and foods I supposedly liked, and that “I always have to check behind the shower curtain.” I didn’t know what to do, so I just ignored it and gave my talk. But afterwards during Q&A, he said, “So I have to ask–why do you check behind the shower curtain?” At that point, I said that I think he’d gotten me confused with someone else since my FB page had none of that on it. He just looked at me with this smug expression like he didn’t believe me and didn’t say anything in response. It annoyed me so much that I actually followed up with a chipper email saying how much I enjoyed giving the talk and clarifying that the person he’d looked up wasn’t me. I never heard back.

    17. Meg Murry*

      Our last name is fairly common, aand when my husband was considering running for (a fairly high level) office, all the variants of LastnameForSpecificOffice and ElectLastName were taken. There is also a person from the opposite party that ran for the same office in a different state that has a variant spelling of my husbands name, so even the best FirstnameLastname combos were taken. We wound up having to throw our State in there just to get a usuable domain name – which made it really long. It also meant that we would have to do a LOT of work to get him higher in the Google rankings in order for people to get the right person and not all his doppelgangers.
      He wound up not running, for other unrelated issues, but the moral of the story is: if there is any chance you or your kids will be running for office in the future – go buy ElectYourName dot com now!

  20. Felicia*

    My last name is extremely uncommon, and my first name isn’t common either, and the only person who shares my name is an older psychiatrist in Rhode Island, so nothing bad. I think having your linkedin searchable, and more online presence that’s actually you would help.

    My dad (whose last name is the same as me and first name even more uncommon), shares a name with someone who died recently, and that person was from the same town he was from, though much older and my dad left that town 25 years ago, and people were calling us offering condolences. I google pretty much every new person I meet, but just out of curiosity

    1. jmkenrick*

      As far I as can tell, no one shares my name…although there is an author in England who is only one letter off…

  21. Rayner*

    I also share a name with a porn star – it makes for funny dinner time conversation. I don’t think she’s done anything for a while – I have to actively search for her now whereas it used to pop up.

    Also, side note. It’s also good if you want a second name (penname, twitter account, professional name not linked to your personal one) to google it as well, with various + words like including porn.

    My friend chose her penname as Jessica NAME, sent it in to the press, got it approved, was waiting for final proofs when she googled herself idly, when she found out that Jessica NAME is also the name of a porn star who likes enemas. A lot of them.

    Not really the kind of person a YA author wants to be confused with lol.

    She got it changed. Eventually.

  22. Sam*

    I have the same problem (EXACT same problem) with my name…it ends up being a funny icebreaker occasional when I meet people and give them my name. They actually feel MORE awkward that they knew the name of a porn star!

  23. De Minimis*

    My name is not that common, but there are a few others….no porn stars, but at least one attorney.

  24. JenniferM*

    I was living abroad for several years and have the same name and age as someone who was wanted for selling fake vaccines in the country where i was living. It made leaving the country a nightmare and I felt really sheepish about it when I came back home and was looking for a job. Googling my name brought up a ton of results about the woman and her crimes. I felt really sheepish about it but apparently everyone just assumed that it wasn’t me.

  25. Eclipse*

    When I Google my name I get some results that are me and a bunch of pages with cat quotes as a well known quote about cats is attributed to my namesake. One namesake of mine managed to set up her Amazon account using my Gmail address so I had to write to her through the mail to ask her to please change it to her actual email address. She did stop placing new orders on the account but hasn’t changed the email address or closed it down so I still get emails with recommendations based on things she bought. The last person who got hired where I work is called David Smith so it’s impossible to find anything that actually relates to him.

    1. Eden*

      That is so annoying! Can Amazon not fix that?

      I do NOT have a common name (there is one other person with my married last name though who come up in Google), and someone who is NOT that person, based on that person’s FB profile, used my email to sign up to be a member of the American Chiropractic Neurology Board. Imagine my surprise to be notified that I had been accepted.

      I feel sorry for whoever it is, because she paid money to be a member, but will never get to register for the site, since I have her ID and password. I have let the ACNB know, but still get the emails.

      1. short'n'stout*

        My email address is firstname.lastname@well-knownwebmail-provider.com. It seems I have quite a few namesakes who don’t pay attention to the address they are giving out.

        At one point I started getting bills from a mobile phone provider in a different country, for an account that was not mine. Every time I told the phone company that their customer had given them the wrong email address, they claimed they couldn’t fix it unless the customer herself asked them to. But they never bothered to try to contact her using some other method, like, oh, I don’t know, her mobile phone number? This went on for months, and in the meantime she was not receiving her bills OR her overdue notices (which had her street address on them). Eventually I threatened to report them to the relevant privacy protection office for that jurisdiction, and that seems to have made it go away.

        The motor insurance company in yet another different country were much more accommodating, and that was cleared up very quickly. Just as well, because the info in the emails they sent out could have let me get into their customer’s account.

        The guy who was emailing me his holiday photos thinking I was his daughter got a bit defensive when I politely let him know I was actually a total stranger. He didn’t email me again, though.

      2. short'n'stout*

        My email address is my name at a well known webmail account provider. It seems I have quite a few namesakes who don’t pay attention to the address they are giving out.

        At one point I started getting bills from a mobile phone provider in a different country, for an account that was not mine. Every time I told the phone company that their customer had given them the wrong email address, they claimed they couldn’t fix it unless the customer herself asked them to. But they never bothered to try to contact her using some other method, like, oh, I don’t know, her mobile phone number? This went on for months, and in the meantime she was not receiving her bills OR her overdue notices (which had her street address on them). Eventually I threatened to report them to the relevant privacy protection office for that jurisdiction, and that seems to have made it go away.

        The motor insurance company in yet another different country were much more accommodating, and that was cleared up very quickly. Just as well, because the info in the emails they sent out could have let me get into their customer’s account.

        The guy who was emailing me his holiday photos thinking I was his daughter got a bit defensive when I politely let him know I was actually a total stranger. He didn’t email me again, though.

  26. J-nonymous*

    Another thing to consider OP, though not to bank on, is that many people who would Google your name would be doing so from a company network. It’s not uncommon for companies to filter out adult-themed websites from search results, and to block certain categories of sites altogether.

  27. ZSD*

    I don’t think this is that bad. I’d actually be more concerned if I shared a name with someone who had been convicted of fraud, embezzlement, etc.

  28. anon-2*

    When the Internet was new and young, I once got into a dialog with a woman on a technical, geeky topic — then learned that she was a retired porn star (used a different name in her ‘acting’ career)….

  29. Lizzy Bennet*

    I had a co-worker whose daughter shared the name of a very active porn worker (at least there were a lot of Google image and web hits) and unfortunately the daughter looked very much the same as the porn worker (they actually looked like the same person). I’m not sure what qualifies a porn “star” exactly, but the woman definitely worked in that trade and had very x-rated photos of herself up. The name was not exactly common, so it would be a very easy mix up if anyone Googled the daughter. My coworker, daughter and I tried to build up her online presence by setting up a LinkedIn account, but the porn worker still rules the Google search. Not fun :(.

  30. Stephanie*

    Without qualifiers, my name produces a lead witness from the Phil Spector murder trial.

    With qualifiers, you get my LinkedIn profile followed by a bunch of articles from my stint as a reporter on my college paper.

    Anyone remember the Duke porn star (ie, the Duke student who was doing porn to pay tuition)? She just sounded really naive when she was like “I’m ok if someone Googles me! I wouldn’t want to work anywhere that wouldn’t hire sex industry workers.”

    If you have Netflix, there’s an interesting documentary called “After Porn Ends” about the struggles of porn industry actors to find post-porn work.

    (And I’m sure this will end up in moderation…)

    1. jmkenrick*

      I think it depends what kind of (non-porn) skills she amasses and where she tries to work. I know a number of people who worked for porn sites (although, to be fair, most of them not in a performer capacity) and they’re all doing fine. I live in NorCal, although one of these girls lives in NYC.

      I wonder how much of that struggle has to do with stigma, and how much of it has to do with the fact that working as a porn performer doesn’t make for a very competitive resume. (Not trying to discount the stigma, which I’m sure is a very real issue, but if you’ve got competitive and demonstrable skills, then people might be more likely to overlook that sort of thing.)

      1. Stephanie*

        I agree. I’d guess by the time she graduates (she’s a freshman now), she would hopefully amass other non-performer skills and wouldn’t try to get some job that requires a crazy security clearance.

        I think stigma’s a huge part of it (which I find hypocritical as you’d have have consumed the porn to recognize the performer). The average performer featured didn’t have a super robust resume. One woman had done off-camera work (writing, producing, directing), but even she ended up becoming a housewife in Utah (she said she chose to move to Utah since porn is semi-illegal there).

        1. Lynn Whitehat*

          As long as she didn’t do anything illegal and couldn’t be blackmailed about it (which talking to the press about it is a good sign she’s not trying to hide it), it wouldn’t actually disqualify her from a clearance.

      2. Blue Anne*

        I have a friend who is really struggling with this right now. She has been a very active porn actress, but not mainstream porn – LGBT, safety-conscious stuff. She’s a big activist and writes a lot of stuff about consent, gets invited to conferences to give talks and workshops, etc. She’s done a lot of freelance writing on these issues, and a lot of social media marketing, both of her own brand and on the issues/companies she’s worked with. She has a *fantastic* handle on this stuff, great CV for a social media manager, really smart and hardworking person who continues to get articles commissioned by Hufffington Post etc.

        But all that experience is inextricably linked with her sex work career. Even if she wanted to start using her birth name, sanitizing her CV would mean wiping all of her relevant experience. And as a result it has been *so hard* for her to find steady paid work that isn’t freelancing, despite absolutely fantastic experience. It’s really depressing to watch – everyone’s advice to women like her is if you want to be financially stable long term, get out of sex work, but even when she really wants to there’s no support for doing so.

        Which is all to say that as far as I can tell, it is about the stigma. Even if sex work does build serious marketable non-sex-related skills, it’s very very hard to leverage that into a career outside sex work. People aren’t inclined to overlook it even if you have the competitive and demonstrable skills.

    2. Anon*

      “After Porn Ends” is really interesting.

      The Duke student (former student?) was only publicizing her fake name, Belle Knox, and not her real name. I remember hearing that her real name was published somewhere, but really, I hope it doesn’t get used much. She might not feel that way in a couple of years…

  31. Lynn Whitehat*

    I used to have the same problem as the OP! My solution: I joined a professional Q-and-A website under my real name and answered lots of people’s questions. Now if you google that name, you get lots and lots of my helpful and informative answers. The “granny and young lesbian” stuff got pushed down to page 8 or so.

  32. Sigrid*

    Hmmm. Well, if you google firstname middlename lastname, which is how I’m listed on my resume etc., you get my PhD thesis as the first hit, and then a bunch of genealogy/history articles about my great-great-aunt, whom I am named after. It should be obvious I’m not that one! If you google just firstname lastname, though, you get 25 different people on LinkedIn alone, plus Facebook (I’m not on there), Twitter (not on there either), and Pinterest (or there). They all seem fairly innocuous, at least….

  33. DC*

    I find it interesting that so many people Google candidates. In HR, I tell our folks NOT to perform Internet searches on candidates. We have reference checks and background screenings. But by Googling, you’re exposed to a lot of information that, I, in HR, would rather hiring managers not have access to–such as religion, disability, political party, etc. IF you don’t have that information, you cannot rely on it even subconsciously in the hiring process, and if you DO have that information, then candidates can make an argument that you improperly used it and didn’t offer them a job. Granted, they may not WIN the argument, but it will still cost us time and money to defend.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      You’re giving up a really useful tool for assessing candidates by doing that. Making yourself as lawsuit-proof as possible isn’t always the most important goal — building a strong team is a crucial thing, and I’d argue trumps the concern here.

  34. short'n'stout*

    My name is identical to that of a younger person who works as a model and actor, and has done some quite edgy stuff if the Google results are anything to go by. I’m cool with that: I figure it gives me a level of deniability if the hits for actual-me’s activities at sci-fi conventions ever come up ;) (Not that I’m ashamed of those hits, but some people have some very odd ideas about the sorts of people who go to cons.) So, I’m comfy with her presence in my search results.

    Now, the web site that has my full name as its domain name and consists of ads for pickup artist training courses? that I’m not so comfortable with. Not because I think people will think it’s me offering the courses, but because the whole PUA thing is utterly offensive to me, and having it attached to “my” name is gross.

  35. EvilQueenRegina*

    There’s an actress (albeit not that well known) who shares my name, and when I went to a pantomime with my family when I was about four, we bought a programme and it turned out this actress was actually starring in whatever was going to that theatre after the pantomime had finished. My cousin got in a temper that my name was in the programme and his wasn’t and he kicked his coat down two rows of seats.

    I also looked up my birthday ages ago and found out that some porn star shares the same date – and so did Mother Teresa. Interesting combination.

  36. James M*

    My name is exceedingly common. Here’s what some of my doppelgängers do
    AuthorCIOLead Security AnalystGlobal Marketing DirectorLawyerRacehorse JockeyButcherBakerCandlestick MakerAustralian Football Player
    I’m not worried about employers googling my name because I put my Linkedin url on my resume.

  37. Wren*

    I like that I have a common first and last name, and that the only media personality sharing my name is a comedian who uses a pun with her name across her online presence, since my sibling and I grew up punning and rhyming our last name. I heartily approve of her full name pun. (No I’m not going to say what it is here.)

    There are also plenty of other women with my names who are simply straight laced professionals with the minimal professional online footprint, so it quickly becomes apparent that when you google my name that you shouldn’t attribute everything you read to me, should one of my name sharers ever do something I wouldn’t want to be mistaken for doing.

  38. Julie M.*

    I am so glad I’m not the only person with this concern. I share a name with a former Playboy model turned comedienne and I’ve always wondered if people googled me, found her, and assumed we were one in the same.

  39. AcademicAnon*

    I’m 99.9% sure I don’t have a name doppleganger, as my first name is very uncommon (even with a singer with that first name) and I have a alternate spelling of it, and my last name is uncommon too. On the plus side when you google the correct spelling of just my fist name, you get just me, and on the con side of that you can also see where exactly I work and what I do.

  40. SD Cat*

    I’ve never met or heard of anyone else with my first and last name combo. Also, Google doesn’t pull up anyone else with my name. So I’m really easy to find.

  41. (Internal) Management Consultant*

    There is a potential risk with using search engines to look at candidates: you could learn things about the candidate that indicates she is member of a protected classes (race, gender, religion, sexual oreintation, etc). It could open you up to some liability even if you’re not using it as part of your hiring process/decision.

  42. Programmer*

    One thing to note: search engines do their best to customize results based on what you’ve searched for previously. Thus, someone with a more… colorful… search history than Alison might get the porn star.

  43. VickyKennedyNotThePornStar*

    I’m also a porn star, from the 50s. But then again, I’m Ted Kennedy’s widow, too. (Thanks for the laugh this morning!)

  44. SubwayFan*

    My name is ridiculously common, and I don’t even own the .com domain for it. Since I want to make sure people don’t confuse me with the award winning Canadian photographer, I’ve staked out my online profile using my first two initals and my last name. So, instead of Jane Murphy, jemurphy. It’s my username on professional social media sites, it’s my gmail address, it’s my domain name with my portfolio. I have it featured on my resume, so you would know to search for jemurphy, or if you searched for Jane Murphy, and didn’t find a reference to jemurphy on the page, it’s probably not me. Which is nice, since there really are a lot of people with my name: forest rangers, professional swimmers, golden retriever breeders, opera directors, magazine editors, nurses, and even one in my area who works in a field I used to.

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