To give my child an ungoogleable name?

[MrsMogginsMinge]

Admittedly I'm only about five minutes pregnant, so this is still at the level of a general muse rather than a real dilemma.

DH has a charming, plain, frequently occurring (especially in Wales) surname, which sounds like a first name. You know the sort of thing. My taste in first names is pretty conservative, especially for boys - I like the old school classics, preferably biblical (despite being a godless atheist myself). So future DC is likely to be one of many many people with his or her name.

Is this condemning him or her to a life of mediocrity or secretly a stroke of genius? I'm convincing myself that the greatest gift one could give a child of the 21st century is relative internet anonymity. AIBU?

(Yes, I know, we should just choose a name we like. But I'd be interested to hear thoughts)

[FuckYouChrisAndThatHorse]

This had never occurred to me, and actually is rather clever. I've got a very googleable name, and up until a couple of years ago there were no other me's out there at all.

Would you be able to give the dc a unique nickname that they were usually called? That way they could have the best of all worlds.

[Youdontneedacriminallawyer]

Or a more unusual middle name?
My parents once told me that the reason people have middle names is to make it less likely that someone else has exactly the same name as you.

[TestingTestingWonTooFree]

Sounds like a good plan.

[PeppermintInfusion]

My maiden name was rare, so rare I was the only person that came up on google/facebook if you searched for me. My married name is far more usual, at first I thought it was a bad thing but now I'm quite glad that if you google me I'm nowhere near the top of the search results (not that there's anything interesting on me anyway!)

[Purpleroxy]

Agree with you, do it!

[MrsMogginsMinge]

I have a more unusual surname, which I kept on marriage, and which is going in as a middle name on my insistence (for feminism, and passport control). So I guess that gives the option of going by e.g. John Jones or John Bananahammock Jones later in life if he/she wants to be more fancy (or googelable). I think the downside is probably that school nicknames are going to be inevitable...

[ithoughtofitfirst]

Call them something really 'out there' for a laugh

[AlpacaPicnic]

I sporadically google the name picked out for my unlikely to ever be future daughter... Nobody's used it yet!
and yet I hesitate to share it with friends in case one of them 'steals' it

[PetulaGordino]

i have a very rare first name / surname combination. this works very well professionally. i think if i marry dp i would take his surname outside of work (but keep it at work) so that my personal life might be less googleable. i don't know

[BadRoly]

I don't often comment on name threads as dc4 gas a 'made up' name. But I think you would really be setting your unborn child up for a life of ridicule with the name 'Bananahammock'. Just saying.

[BadRoly]

Should have checked - has not gas

Oh and we have a very unusual surname so are pretty much fucked on the whole anonimity thing.

[Chippednailvarnish]

I'm the only person with my name. I've never given it much thought tbh...

[MrsMogginsMinge]

I've just googled myself (can't believe I've never done it before) and brilliantly there's someone else with my name who has a massive internet presence - open Facebook page, personal website, the lot. The only reference to me is from my work website. Thank you, random person with my weird name!

Now, how to engineer this situation with future DC? Aside from giving the same name as a celeb, which I can't quite bring myself to do...

[ShakeYourTailFeathers]

I have a really, really boring name....it's not a bad thing

[ouryve]

I have a wonderfully ungooglable real name - and my first name isn't even especially common.

The best thing to do is to try it out and, if you get lots of different hits, then you're probably onto a winner. You'll probably find that you won't even need a current top 10 name, because popular names change all the time. Robert Smith, for example brings up 4 different people on the first results page alone.

[VegetarianHaggis]

Surely you can have both - unique and hard to google.
Meet little BT Broadband or little Natwest Branch Network.

[cheminotte]

I have a unique first and surname combination and think its great for my professional identity. But I'm not on Facebook so have no personal identity online iyswim.

[grocklebox]

way to overthink it. No name is ungoogleable, and frankly, who cares? Its incredibly easy to find anyone online, usual or unusual name.

[wadingthroughtreacleuphill]

I have a unique name, and hate it.

As a result any child of mine will blend anonymously into the crowds :)

[doziedoozie]

Having an unusual name will be very useful in the future when her descendants want to trace their ancestors. My DGF has an unusual name and it is sooo easy to find stuff about him.

[weeblueberry]

I have the same name as a very famous actress. In fact I don't even appear until page 10 of google and that's only as high as it is because I have quite a high internet presence as I'm in marketing :)

[wadingthroughtreacleuphill]

Have to admit I don't give two hoots about my descendants!

On a serious note, it's annoying. A unique name is remembered at things like unsuccessful job interviews, for example, and I find myself notorious at times (oh someone mentioned , I've heard about you!) I was a Samaritan years ago, and we had to give our first names, I ended up giving my middle name out as I didn't want to be recognised.

Seriously, I can't think of any advantages.

[ArcheryAnnie]

I remain entirely delighted that, despite the fact I spend most of my life online (for both work and leisure), and that my name is not all that common, someone with my exact name and a respectable occupation is far, far more of an internet presence that I am. I feel nicely protected by it.

So - I like your idea.

[TiggyD]

You are GIVING the child a name. It will be their name, not yours. When you give somebody a present you try to give them something they would like. You don't buy them something because you would like it, like giving a vegetarian a bouquet of chops for example.

And there's no point in trying to predict what technology will be able to do in 20 years time.

[VirkeligRodet]

Yeah, I like that if I googled my name, so many references would pop up nobody would have a clue what was me and what wasn't.

If she wants to become googleable then she can jazz up her name herself, eg, Lily Zeta Smith