I share a name with a very famous professional athlete. I don’t even think about it usually but as soon as I have to give my name to someone I can pretty much count on some remark about the athlete by the same name.
I’ve dealt with this in many ways over the years but my most recent method is to pretend to have never heard of that famous person by the same name. That makes the conversation awkward and they usually move on.
Also, if you meet someone who shares a name with a celebrity, keep these things in mind:
- There is nothing you can say about it that is funny or clever. We have heard it all before. Just don’t.
- If you do have something to say about it that is truly original and absolutely hilarious, see the previous rule.
Not much, people always ask me if I’m named after the celebrity.
I assume I am because there’s very few other people with my name except him so I guess so.
Only did was climb down a ladder. Which I have also do not many occasions or I guess I’m living up to the name.
I love that my online presence is practically invisible because of the celeb with the same name.
I did get a really spicy email from one of their fans once.
What does spicy mean in this context ? angry ?
Explicitly sexual.
Its crazy, even an uncommon but popular surname helps.
My last name is very in/famous, and my first and last name together is also very famous. The former gets the tiring “any relation to?” question, but I wrote a quip about my first and last name together which stops questions about either one before they happen
Mike Tyson?
No, but that would make for some great chicken jokes
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A friend of my brother has the same name as a Muppet. Used to haul his ID out in bars and use it as an ice breaker. I mean he could have used “me like you” as an ice breaker, given his physical appearance, so not sure how much of an advantage this gave him.
Edit: just realized I inadvertently imitated Cookie Monster, but it was a different Muppet.
Definitely Elmo
Bunsen Honeydew
My money’s on Guy Smiley
Wasn’t there an American president named Elmo something?
Well there was president Grover Cleveland; and president Teddy Roosevelt had a son named Kermit. Jim Henson liked to use historical names occasionally for Muppet characters. No Elmos in the White House yet though.
Bobby Benson
… Floyd Pepper?
Yeah, it could be worse. I used to work with a guy who shared a name with some random executive that went on a racist tirade that went public. He had to lock down his social media because of all of the death threats.
Father Johnathan?
I share a name with a professional hockey player that’s not too known, but kinda known in my province.
When I search my name in Google, I’m not in the first page. That’s about it. Most people don’t know that player anyway.
Gotta be Dale Hawerchuk.
Hahahaha no. Much, much less known.
Based on your username, my first guess would be Mathieu Olivier.
Nope :)
Not too many Luigis living in the US I can assume. No big perks or benefits from it. One time a teacher said, “I don’t know how to spell Luigi… so I’ll call you Lewis”, and slapped that hello-my-name-is nametag on me.
That is very nice and disrespectful of them.
What a wholesome and shitty thing to do !
Not exactly a famous person, but I have a somewhat unusual name that happens to be exactly the same as a fairly prolific music executive in my country.
It’s kind of a win-win, because it’s not someone most people have heard of so I don’t get the remarks, but also I’m basically un-Googleable lol
being un-googleable is seriously underrated. if I ever had kids I’d give them the most common names possible for exactly that reason. Sure it can be annoying when you’re the 8th John in your class but that’s a lot easier to get used to than the amount of bullying and harassment you could get for having a really uncommon name, especially if it’s a silly name or shared name with garbage famous person
Yeah, I have an extremely unusual name. From what I can tell there are at most three other people in the world with the same name as me, and none of them lives here in the US.
Leaving aside the fun of being hassled for having a weird name when I was a kid, as an adult I am very careful about what I put online, since there is no way to hide it. If it’s in English and connected with my name, it unquestionably concerns me.
I feel this comment.
Oh shit, it’s dead mau five!
I share a name with and average skilled hockey player who played for long time on mediocre teams. We are also the same age.
Although my name is uncommon it is not rare. So many other lawyers, insurance sales, etc who have a larger online presence mask me very effectively.
It’s enough that googling my name is a waste of time.
It also helps that I have a small footprint online with no social media accounts linked back to my real name.
maybe gets you get reservations at the fancy spots
I have something similar! Mine is a playwright, so not on most people’s radar, unless they Google my name. It’s great.
Easy, just write a program that takes the fractions of a cent that are rounded off during bank transactions and deposits them in an account you control. It’s foolproof.
Just don’t forget to carry the one.
It’s the plot for Superman 3.
I have a friend that shares the name with a New York Times best selling writer. The first time I saw one of his books I was like “Da fa?”.
My tattoo guy shares a name with a very famous author and theres a sign outside his station that says “No not the author and if you ask you will be charged extra”
George Martin does tattoos?
No. But EL James does.
I share my name with a former baseball catcher that is most noted for an incident at home plate where he punched a guy that probably deserved it. I rarely get called on it though, he was not that well known, and he has been retired more than a decade.
The names are both common enough that there have been a few other notables with it as well, like the cinematographer that married a fairly high profile Hollywood actress a few years back.
Varitek?
My full name exactly matches a famous pitcher and catch people giving me the nostalgic smile of “wait… it’s like the baseball player, right?” or “He’s the best”. Luckily I was named after him, so I have the excuse of not really knowing much about him
I tried googling myself and I found it difficult to find any of my shit online even with specific keywords. So that’s kinda nice.
Ok out of all the comments I think yours has the most clues… I could probably figure this one out with some research lol
It would be ok if you figured it out. There’s dozens of us!
I share my name with a US state and people always have the exact same jokes. I’ve also begun using the pretend like I’ve never heard it method and it’s pretty funny sometimes to act like I don’t even get it at first.
Idaho must be an awful name to live with
Condolences
Peaches? 🍑
Whiskey? 🥃
Cold? 🥶
Indiana Jones?!?!?!
Cool story, Miss Issippi.
Not exactly what you asked, but I ship for an online retailer and we get some good ones. Had James Brown, Mike Jones (281-330-8004), and Timmy Turner today. We handle it by laughing (in good fun), or in the case of Mike Jones, yelling his phone number throughout the warehouse much to the chagrin of our uninitiated elderly CS team.
To your “rules” (of course there are none lol), rest assured these people are not around to hear us lightheardedly referrence the celebrity or cartoon character they’re named after. And my name is a dick joke and we have a guy named “Rape,” we’ve earned the right.
I have the same name as a Hollywood writer/director. But he’s not crazy popular/notable except maybe in horror circles, and also our name is common enough that there is no worry about people making weird comments to me. Additionally I enjoy his movies and joke that “I made this” when his name shows in the credits.
I have the same name as a barely famous YouTuber, not famous enough for people to know the name in real life. The only thing that happens is that I occasionally get emails meant for him. I do own the name’s website, so I’m hoping he gets really famous and tries to buy it off of me for a lot of money.
