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[stubbornhubby]

my children were named long ago, but if i was naming a child now one of my biggest areas for thought would be : is it better to have an unusual name, so that people can find you on google and facebook, or a 'john smith' type name where you will always be difficult to locate.

there are pros and cons, and I think it's an interesting one.

I have an unusual surname - (less than 500 people in the world it seems) and so every one of my family have unique names, and are easy to find on google and facebook. I think our experience of modern life is shaped quite strongly by this.

I am interested to know if other people debate this, and which side do come down on one? Do you go for a rare name, or a thousands of 'em?

Did this ever occur to you? It doesn't seem to be discussed on MN (or at least I couldn't find it in a search)

My surname is also very unusual, and my first name was pretty unusual (in the UK, not so much in the US) until about 5-10 years ago, but now it's EVERYWHERE, grrr. Still, for now it means that if I google my name, all the entries are me, me, me, and I readily admit I really like that (and will be enraged if one day an imposter appears on "my" search results page).

DH's name, however, both first and surname, are common as muck . And since DD has his surname and quite a common first name, she won't be easy to find on these type of searches. I must admit it didn't even cross my mind when naming her (though tbh, with DH's surname, she was never going to be unique unless we called her Esmeralda Boniface Zahara, or something).

Only ten people in the whole world with me and DS's surname. Doesn't matter what first name I choose for future childrne, they'll still be one of a kind

DS (3 yrs) is apparently a very busy television producer...now how he managed to fit that in with his playground and nap schedule I'll never know. :o

DS is not only the only one with his name but already comes up twice, I'm not sure whether I should be pleased or concerned that he is that famous at 2!

There is only one other person with my name on fb (I don't use my own name on there anyway) but several more must be around as DP once spoke to a much older one when he worked in a call centre.

I am the first 5 results you get from Googling my name :)

Like the OP, I can be relatively confident that anyone with my surname is related to me if I go back far enough. There are only 7 of us in the UK (used to be just 4 but my borther got married and had kids). There was another "visitor" from SOuth Africa who was doing a PhD at Oxford: I found out about her by googling - emailed her and worked out that great great grandfather's second cousin by a second marriage (IIRC) - but I think that she has gone back now.

Unfortuantely dh's surname, although unusual, is also a common verb so it is therefore not google-able - and both he and ds have relatively common first names.

well.... all my boys have unusual names.

if you put their names into google they're in the top few results. BUT that is because they each have their own website and dp has SEO'd the shit out of them

I'm the only one with my name on Google, which is ideal because I work freelance in the film industry and I'm easy to find for jobs. Frankly I'd hate to have a common name - why give your kid the same name as everyone else? I think folk get too hung up on school bullies - if they don't rib your name they'll rib your height, or your dad's car, or your ears... why kowtow to a bunch of juveniles? Go for something special, I reckon.

My sister has a googlewhack (only one of her) name and mine is also pretty unusual. Not mad names just the first name and surname combo. We both hate it as we don't want to be found!

You might also like to think about how their name will appear in an email address.

I got an email recently from someone called Lee Rather - without spaces in the email address I read it as 'Leer at her'

And when I create user names for our learning platform, which usually have the form first initial +surname, I have several times had to insert an extra initial to prevent an unfortunate combination...

the thing about unusual names is

• on the one hand it's nice that people can find you

• BUT it is a pain that foolish things you said or did eight years ago are STILL on the front page when the guy at the next desk idly puts your name into google, and - sigh, yes - there is no doubt whatsoever that it is you.

Going through life leaving a large googletrail everywhere is tiring - and that can only get worse.

I'm pretty much unique - I thought I was unique but was quite upset for five minutes the other day to discover another of me in America. I had to really look tho', they haven't turned up on google yet.

I'm not on Facebook for various reasons. I always think if people want to find me all they have to do is google me and there I am. I really struggle to find people I was at school with, it was the english border near wales - loads of roberts, phillips, hughes, edwards etc.

DP isn't unique, tho there aren't many. Just tried dd, and there are no others (so far!).

I did like the idea of her having an unusual name - I always liked the unusualness of mine as a child, not so much the name itself. I hope dd will feel the same.

I am the only me, DD1 is the only her (bar a couple of long-dead versions) and DD2 is the only one of her too (dead or alive) on FB or Google.

How 'Google-able' or otherwise a name might be didn't affect our choice of names but as our surname is very unusual in the UK we are careful to ensure that our DDs' names don't appear online in conjunction with our surname. If we are asked for permission for photographs to be put in newspapers/online we always state that our consent is valid provided our surname is not used.

When they are older both DDs are going to have to be sensible about their online profiles as they will, potentially, be very easy to identify. With the children I teach I make it very clear that usernames need to be non-gender specific e.g. cavegirl isn't a good one and that cavecreature is preferable. My 'maiden' name is also a male name which meant that it was often assumed that I was a male...my daughters won't have that 'luxury' (it was a horrible name and no-one ever spelt/pronounced it correctly, hence changing it when I got married).

I am totally unique, bloody hippy parents

Interesting points - however, my primary concern when googling my children's names before announcing them to the world was that I hadn't inadvertently named them after serial killers or porn stars. And thankfully, I hadn't. That's not to say there won't be any in the future though obviously!

Our surname is so unusual that it didn't really matter what first names we gave the DC they're always going to be easily traced (well DD maybe not so much if she marries & changes her name )

googling my kids just brings up their appearances in local rag

we have unusual last name and both ds have unsual fn, actually didnt think of this google issue but is a bit uncomfy if people can find them so easily on google. although i dont think anything will come up so far as they are young, but later in life it could be an issue. in terms of googling and that kind of thing it is probably better to have a not so rare name, but i just liked the unusual names for them..

To answer the OP, I cannot see ANY benefits of having a 'John Smith' (thousands of them) name. I agree with previous posters that the whole point of naming someone is to IDENTIFY them.

All my DS's have names in the top 50. However our surname is quite uncommon, it's one of those ones you need to spell all the time.

Just searched FB. There are 8 DS1s, 10 DS2s and zero DS3s. There is also two of me, one of which is me.

Googlinf their names, DS3 is apparently a famour high court judge in Texas, who knew!

Just googled DS's name and the first hit is his grandma's Bebo page talking about him. Lots of false positives, though, because there appear to be a pair of famous rally drivers who share his (unusual) name between them - one has his first and middle names and the other has his surname. And they're local to us. How odd!

Have just googled my DD's name...just her first and middle names, no surname, and she's one of the top ten links! I'm well chuffed.

DS's name which is not very common in the UK (and sometimes described as 'posh' by some mumsnetters) is surprsingly common in the US, New Zealand and France.

IsThatTheTime - you're right about not being able to predict who else will have the same name in future - if I google DD's name, I get pages of results for a somewhat notorious girlfriend (or possibly now ex-girlfriend) of a rapper, who was obviously not in evidence when I named DD 20 years ago. Annoyingly, it's not even this woman's real name, though ironically her real first name was actually DH's first choice for DD...

DD has a unique name and DS has only one match, but our surname is pretty unique, particularly in the UK where there is (to my knowledge) only 4 of us in the phone book, and 3 of them are close relations!

Both my DC have conventional english (although not terribly common) names. Even if they'd had poplular names at the time of their birth (Molly, Alice, Siobhan, Grace for DD and George, Jack & Thomas for DS) I think that their names would still be pretty unique, just because of the surname.

If our family name had been Smith or Jones, I wonder if I'd have named them differently???

Interesting question OP!

There are some famous people with DS?s name - one v famous now dead, and a couple of sort-of famous sportspersons/political activists. So very doubtful that he will ever be googleable, as the dead very famous person comes up on the first 3 pages!
V interesting question - have just finished some training on children in care and the problems with birth families identifying their whereabouts. The consensus was that face book and google are potentially very threatening to the security of children?s placements, but there is really not a lot that can be done about it. Quite depressing actually