Your e-mails messages make me squeal, Dear Readers. Every one of them. But one in particular inspired a blog post.
This one. From Penny at Life on the Cutoff.
My mail arrived today, Andra – and what a delightful surprise awaited me.
I don’t often use self control if I have mail, but, today, I picked the box out of the mailbox on my way to running some errands (our box is at the street). I saw the name Michael Maher on it and wondered what my hairstylist, who is also now a dear friend, was sending me. You see, her husband’s name is Michael Maher. As soon as I opened the box and saw the slippers I knew it was you! Then, squealing with delight, I finally looked at the address (what a very cool street address) and realized it was you, dear soul. Thank you.
When I posted about the crazy penguin slippers my mom gave me, Penny mentioned she liked penguins. In my story about tenderness, she said her slippers were two left feet.
I decided she had to have the penguin slippers, and I sent them along with her Super-Secret Reader Letter.
I never thought she would know another potential MTM……….
Which sent me poking around on the site HowManyofMe.com.
According to their database, there are just four people named Andra Watkins in the United States. There are 350 potential MTM’s. Out of 317,556,172 people.
But only ONE of them is the one for me.
How many of YOU are there, Dear Reader? I mean, we’re all unique. But how many folks share your name?
80 Comments
There are 34 people out there with my name. That is a lot. My maiden name though, there is only 1. Which I find amazing. Sarah is a common first name, but my maiden name was a bit of a doozie. What a fun site. Oh and I heart all slippers. Penguin or not. I am wearing some now. #SlipperLife
These sites are such time sucks but are so much fun, too. I love reading what everybody else got.
I’m unique! I Google my name, and there are lots and lots of links, but they all seem to be ME.
That’s a good thing, Donna. 🙂
I am so lonely! If you use my real, on my birth certificate, name then there is only 1 of me. Wow. Even less than the 4 of you. If you use the name you know me as, Michael is actually my middle name, then there are 34. Still not that many. It is a lonely world.
As for slippers – mine are so covered in cat hair that I can’t tell what they are. Oh wait, those are my own feet. Ew.
You are right…there is only one Ew Carnell in the US, maybe the world!
Says the man from the cheese state! Oh hardy har har… 😉
Ew is right. 🙂
There’s 532 of me in the U.S. alone. Oh, and there’s also a bunch of people with the same name as me . . .
Hee hee.
Oh, I don’t want to know. The first time I looked up my name, I was someone who died in a traffic accident. It reminded me of an old story I thought up a while back and abandoned, so I just stopped looking. It also reminded me of this old film that’s not QUITE related, but has an interesting idea kicking around:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ2EkxxxHwQ
Eek!!!
Looks like there are just two of us in the U.S. according to the site. So, I guess I should find them and see if we’re twins, maybe they live in Twinsburg, Ohio??
http://www.twinsdays.org/
Lou, there’s only one of you. I’m quite certain of that.
If I use Jim Stewart, there are 517 others. If I use James Stewart, there 6129 others. I am such a commoner!
Of course, there’s Jimmy Stewart…………. 🙂
Ha! Robert – third most popular 1st name. Johnson 2nd most popular last name. 34,444 folks with the name in the USA. (I think they are wrong. That is too low.)
The most famous one, (based on the amount of guitar jokes I endure) is of course dead, and according to legend, playing for the devil in hell. Andra, stay away from the Crossroads!
I have to cross many Crossroads on my trek, I’m afraid………..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgShIx49n_w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI34WfKJPyk
Lisa is one of the most common names (#1 girls name in the early 1960’s) however once I put in my last name I’m a one and only.
It’s good to be a one and only. 🙂
Okay, this thing fibs. I searched my name and it said that there are “1 or fewer” with that name in the USA. Yet I know 2 other women in this country with the exact same name. So I call “liar, liar, pants on fire” on HowManyofMe.com. That being said, it’s a fun goof.
I can’t believe there are four of me, either. (Though the one I do know about is a criminal……….)
Really?! Now that sounds exciting, in a troubling sort of way. I hope that she causes no problems for you. 🙁
It’s a big, hulking HE, and there’s no way anyone would mistake me for him. 🙂
No kidding! This just keeps getting better and better. Flip city.
Ha ha… 1. But I doubt it is my name in the Boarder Patrol and Homeland Security data base with an illegal alien number assigned to it. Does that count? 😉
Ha.
There are 124 of me in the US. If I use my maiden name, it’s 13 and, if I use my first married name, there are only four. This search will take up a lot of my morning – I’ll look up everyone I know. We’re snowed in up here (over 10 inches and still falling). Good day to catch up on House of Cards before the new season hits tomorrow. Hope y’all still have power.
We never lost power. We live right next to the SCE&G power generating station downtown. It’s ugly to look at, but very convenient in times like these.
There are 9 of me in the US. 🙂
Andra-your mail is the best!
Glad you go it, Shannon.
There is a whopping 32 people out there that have my first and last name. Lori is fairly common and so is O’Leary, but together? Not so much. Congratulations Penny. How very thoughtful you are Andra.
I was glad she was tickled with them.
I’m not sure, but there are three in my area alone. Sigh. My name is very common, but not as common as say John Smith. 😀
I’ve only known one John Smith in my entire life. Not very common, that.
There are two other people out there who share my name. One of them found me on Facebook and we were friends for awhile, but in the end she unfriended me. I guess all we had in common was our name. 🙂
I had someone on Pinterest named Andra who was creating a board of Andras…………..I wonder if that’s still there?? I never go on Pinterest anymore, because I started getting emails from them with sale offers for things I’d pinned.
593 for me. Interesting since I never met anyone else with “my” name until I moved to Florida and worked at a state agency. At that agency, for the first time in my life, I found myself getting emails and phone calls for another Marie Ann Bailey. She happened to work in a different office and she also had been getting my emails and phone calls. We put up with it for 3 years and then I moved on. I never thought it would unnerve me to know that someone shares all three of my names.
And for you, dear Andra, it is quite fitting that your name is rare. You are indeed a very generous person to give up your penguin slippers 😉
Interesting that you met her and could correspond about the problem.
Looks like there are 24 not-mes and for the longest time, the one that always floated to the top of Google search results was a convicted murderer. Yikes.
I mentioned somewhere above that one of mine is a convicted criminal, but not a murder. He was in the newspaper in Georgia.
I wondered where Michael Maher would lead you, Andra – and me. Seems there are 24 of me as Penny, maybe 1 as Penelope using my maiden name. That was fun.
Thanks for linking to me. Ordered To Live Forever . . . and can’t wait to read it, in my new warm slippers of like-minded feet. Thank you, Andra. You are the best!
I’m really glad they fit, Penny. I hoped they would. They’re perfect for this abominable winter.
There are 64 of me, which surprises me a bit except that I already knew there was one other who also graduated from my alma mater. (Sorry, chick, I took our name on the alumni e-mail service, you’re just going to have to append a class year!)
I just wanted to say… I HAVE YOUR BOOK! I am making myself do my own work today before opening it, but come 4 pm, it is all me and Meriwether. Can’t wait!
I hope that means you’re reading now. 🙂
I have to say this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I thought writing the book was hard. I thought all the professional rejection was hard. Nope. THIS is the hardest.
Thanks for letting me know you got it.
I can only imagine — your baby out there with all those EYES on it? Having read it, though, I can tell you you have nothing to worry about. People will love it — I did! Your writing style is so great, it’s wonderful to get a whole novel to enjoy.
I still worry. I can’t help it. If you wrote that gorgeous review, thank you. I’m trying not to read them, but MTM woke me up saying someone wrote this incredible review. After thinking about it, I thought it might be you. Either way, thanks so much for reading it. We both write for people to read, and it means a lot when people do that.
That was indeed me and I meant every word. Hopefully it will be one of the first of many!
My name is common, as much as I hate to admit it. Growing up I played football with the Greenbay Packers. A friend in third grade gave me the football card (lost to the ages of course). While in training in the Marines there was another me in a different company at the same training base as me. I got his mail once, took a few lines of the letter to really confuse me (my parents don’t own cows). Recently, I ran across another writer me. He writes crime study books or something along those lines (he might be the smart version of me).
These are just the mes I have run across. Imagine how many of me must be running loose in the wild.
I’ve never even met another Andra, let alone one with my whole name. That has to be kind of surreal when it happens.
And the world needs more yous running around in the wild, Jon.
This was a fascinating exercise for me. I have been progressing in anonymity whilst increasingly putting myself out into the world. Using my Maiden name there is only 1, ME. Using my first married name 12, my second married name 137 and my current chosen name 686. I’ve become incognito, must have been subconscious..
Ha. Love that progression.
There are 11 named Lucy Anaya, 223 named Lucy Mitchell, but only 1 Lucy Anaya-Mitchell. 🙂
I always spell your name Lucie because Steve does.
It says there is only 1 of me here in the States, which I know to be false. There’s at least 4 of me, one in Colorado, one in New York, here, and one I think in the Washington state area.
Eek………maybe they’re all………….deceased??
Oh, not to my recent recollection. I’m quite at ease with it. It happens.
Apparently Andra, there are 1 or fewer people with the name Rose Boras in the U.S..! But that was my aunt’s name before she married (she lives in Germany though).
I think your name is very unique, Rose. It looked pretty on that envelope.
🙂
The speed of calculation on HowManyOfMe.com is IMPRESSIVE. I couldn’t even check the local phonebook in the time it searched through ALL phonebooks and data bases. 😉
Ah. The magic of computers. I was skeptical as well.
Well, it probably is not 100% accurate . . . but it may be in the ballpark.
And it’s fun to think that you might introduce yourself someday and hear, “HEY! That’s my name too!”
I got 90 for Nancy + last name, but when I put in my real first name (Natasha), there are only 2. Yay! Makes me feel special. 😉
I didn’t realize you could be a Russian Princess, too. I love the name Natasha.
Squee! I WISH I was a Russian Princess. 🙂 Although I do share Eastern Euro roots with my RP bestie. Different country, but same communist roots. 😉
I kinda love Natasha too. It’s a shame my parents caved to the pressure of the melting pot and Americanized my name when I was just a wee toddler.
I found an actress who played in Dr Who in the 60’s, dressed as a rather sexy amazon clutching a Bow and arrow. I was majorly impressed.
PS: according to the site you mention, there are only two of me in the US. I hoe that one of them is an ageing Amazon 🙂
One and only, as far as HowManyofMe can tell. I married into a very exclusive group of crazy French Canadians.
There are 4,080 people named Robert Ross, which is not as many as I would have thought. But I wish there was a site to tell me how many of them have the middle name Wendell!
There are 1 or fewer with the name Debbie Eures and 8 with Debbie Hennessy. What seems strange is there are only 118 people with the last name Eures! I would have thought there would be more! I’m going to start reading your book tonight!
111 (guess 1 is my lucky number)
1,934 with my name. I’m going to start an army. Oh wait, that needs, like, what? 80,000+. Maybe just a brigade. The LauraThompson Brigade. We’d carry Hunga Munga’s and each have a fashionably painted trebuchet. If each one brought her own we could use the scones I made last night as ammunition.
I seem to have a very common name. There are 189 James Moffitt’s in the U.S. Now I will need to look up my German birth name. I bet there are very few of those. Unfortunately all of my adoption papers are written in German and I am not sure I could find my actual name (Don Yakop ???) so I can search for it. Oh well…
*smugly* Nobody on earth has all of mine. I used to be embarrassed by the four of them, but now I proudly use them, in full, on my novels.
With my maiden name Davis, there were more than 1,000. With my married name, just me! I’d better stay married to retain my uniqueness. This is fun. I’ve never heard of this website. And those penguin “booties” are just too cute!
OOOOhhh what fun. There are 208 Jessie Powells. If I were to change my name to my husband’s, there would only be 8 Jessie Merriman’s, AND since it doesn’t seem to recognize hyphenation, I can’t tell how many there would be if I were to mash them together. BUT, if I ever really seriously did change my name, I’d have to be all peculiar about it. I couldn’t hyphenate. I’d comma-ize. I’d be Jessie Bishop Powell, Merriman. Then, Scott’s last name would be like a title. And you can believe that would TOTALLY be like a one of a kind.
2, count ’em, 2 Lance Bursons including me in the U.S.
nice. I hope he’s more handsome, successful and mentally stable than I.
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