Friday Test Results: What's in a name?
A couple of facts:
- There are 810 people in the U.S. with the last name [my last name].
- Statistically the 32512th most popular last name. (tied with 1841 other last names)
- There are 199,479 people in the U.S. with the first name Regina.
- Statistically the 313th most popular first name. (tied with 2 other first names)
- 100 percent of people with the first name Regina are female.
| HowManyOfMe.com | ||
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I actually know -- and, oddly enough, am not related to -- one other person with the same first and last name as mine. Neither of us is from the town in which we met, and we worked for a time at the same very large institution. When I left, the HR goons terminated her from the system instead of me. I kept calling to try to figure out why I wasn't getting my final paycheck, etc., and found out months later that her boss got the notification of termination while she was on vacation, panicked, called her mother to find out how to reach her. Apparently he thought she'd found a job while she was away and quit without notice. When she denied having done any such thing, he deleted the termination notification without realizing that there was another person with the same first and last names.
We had met several times and never realized that we have the same first name, as she goes by one nickname (Gina) and I go by another one (Nora) that is actually a diminutive of my middle name, (Elinore, if you wanna know). But it's an unusual enough last name (only 810 others have it, according to this website, anyway) that we were surprised to learn that I was not related to her husband's family. I had certainly never met anyone with my last name that I wasn't related to, although I've heard rumors about them for years.
A mildly interesting story about my last name: when my [great-?]great-grandfather and his brothers left Sweden in the late 1890s, they shared the last name Gustavsson, as they were all sons of Gustav. On realizing, however, that in their new country, their surname would be passed down in perpetuity, and not subject to the patronymic naming conventions of their old country, two or maybe three of the brothers decided to change their last name. They chose a Swedish word meaning, roughly, 'strife,' or 'struggle' (it is not, as my lovely ex-wife would have you believe, the Swedish word for 'stubborn.' I have no idea why she'd think that).
via Lauren at Faux Real.
6 comments:
Whoa! How coincidental is that???
That was quite the story. Enjoyed it. Thank you!
Peace.
Yes, that was a very enjoyable story (set of stories, really).
According to this site, no one in the United States, not one person, has my last name. Naturally, since my living brother, paternal uncle, and the male cousin that is his only son all share this last name, I know this to be untrue. Also, there are a dreidel manufacturer and a publisher of Jewish religious literature with my last name.
It never ceases to amaze me how many spurious tests abound across th' Internets -- or how I feel compelled to take every single one!
I guess they got their data from the US census database. I'll have to check again. Surely it's not possible that the US Census Bureau makes a mistake? Glad to know I'm not the only one who has to take every test she stumbles across.
Wow, I have only met one person named Regina and she called her self Gina also.
I've been wondering about this lately as I have very common names. Turns out I'm just one of over 5000! Hee, hee, guess I needn't worry about my anonymity! (I'll be reusing that line when I post about this. Thanks by the way, I needed something quick to put up!)
hmmm . . . it says there are 548 people with my first and last names. I have lived near two of them.
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