Is Your Name Unique?
I always thought my name was pretty unique. There's not a lot of Russell's in the world - not compared with the Mike, Daves and Scotts, for example. And Beattie isn't Smith. However, if you check out my Online Guestbook you'll see the last two entries are from people named Russell or their family members. How funny is that? I'm the #1 Russell Beattie on Google (and take up a fair number of spots below that too... ;-) ) so it's easy to find me... But I'm far from unique.
Now, here's the weird thing. See my URL? It's quite long, hey? RussellBeattie.com. 14 letters... and pretty simple to remember if you know me. Very easy. Now - let's try an experiment. Do the same with your name and see if it's taken. If you're John Smith, probably JohnSmith.com is already taken, but for many of the rest of us, it isn't, right?
Okay, NOW I want you do this: Reverse the names and do the same search. SmithJohn.com. Did you find anything? Hmmmm. This is weird, probably not at all, right?
Get this: BeattieRussell.com is taken! It's a LAW FIRM IN SEATTLE!! How odd is that?!?! Some guy named Beattie and some woman named Russell decided, "Hey, let's work together and trip that guy Russ out." I'm sure they were surprised when they went to register RussellBeattie.com and found some guy had already taken it.
I guess if I think about it, it's not that weird because Russell is used more often than not as a last name. But still. What are the odds? Email me if you find that your LastnameFirst.com is taken... I bet no one emails.
-Russ