When employed, I did a bit of media so I would periodically check what came up. As discussed previously, all too frequently contributions to the blog came up first, prompting my longstanding nom de plume.
The other results were mainly for an American professor of astro physics who seemed to present at a range of conferences around the globe. He looked liked Seasick Steve.
I just checked and a new interloper has arrived. “A leading food futurist”. FFS , I’ll take the astro physicist.
Stephen King.
Is it true you were the inspiration for Paul Sheldon, HP, or was
The scene with the sledgehammer just wishful thinking* on his part?
* Wishful Thinking – great title for an SK book
err….. yes I’ve got a few friends;
Singer/Songwriter
Named leader of a musical quartet
Former lead singer with Kool & The gang
Former England cricketer
etc etc in fact the list is very long;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Taylor_(disambiguation)
There’s also a James Tailor in Savile Row
Presumably he is known as Jimmy Savile?
There’s a large Electronic components distributor that has the same family name as me. I actually did my degree in Electronics and worked in that field all my life, but have no family connection – as I have told numerous people over the years. I did once thing of applying for a job there, just to see what happens (I may still try this…..)
There’s also a famous sports lawyer (that does most of the premier league stuff) that stole my name. Probably not a good idea to sue.
I think there’s also a science fiction author as well.
I have a namesake in Northampton Mass who keeps not turning up for doctors’ appointments, is interested in medical marijuana, and most recently bought a frozen pizza, choc chip cookies and 2 litres of diet ginger ale with food stamps from a pharmacy of all places.
My gmail has a dot where his doesn’t, which is all it takes. I’ve tried forwarding to him and telling senders they’ve got the wrong guy, all without result. Now I just chuck it in the spam.
Other not particularly famous namesakes include a board game designer in Michigan, a prof at Durham University, a former golf cart salesman in Scottsdale Arizona, and someone who just died in Cumby, Texas. The most prominent one is a local historian in Cambridgeshire who gets all the attention on Google.
I also share my name with someone who visits the same hospital as myself, even stranger is that he shares the same date of birth (day, month and year).
Does this hospital have a lot of mirrors by any chance Hubes?
Oooh spooooky. A doppelganger
Also when I taught bricklaying, the head of department for construction at the college in the next town had the same name as me, he also taught bricklaying.
I also share my name with a small town in Alabama.
I lived round the corner from someone with the same name as me, and we had daughters with the same forname but spelled with one letter different. We shared the same GP, and I was regularly given his prescription little blue pills.
Our families all went to the same village primary school. At one point, it looked like we might buy their house. It was an effing nightmare in terms of paperwork.
Is he dull ?
He was Polish and his parents named the family after the first place they settled. It’s a small village on the Fens.
I was named after my Scottish side of the family, which is a small village near Edinburgh, and the location of Archie The Inventor’s castle tower in Ballamory.
Ramsey Forty Foot would be an epic surname. Guyhirn would be a good one.
What happened to the pills?
Asking for a friend. With the same name as me
My namesake back last century was a free-scoring left-winger for Peterhead FC. He played a few times for Partick Thistle Reserves but last I heard he was running a Hairdressers Salon as well as “Inverurie’s Finest Chipper – try our famous white pudding supper!”
A true Man of our Times
I also had a footballing namesake, though mine was of greater note, making it to a Premiership club. However, I had the pleasure of hearing that I had just scored for Crewe Alex at Gresty Road.
Blimey, just googled myself. Same year of birth, same University although instead of Sud de France I’m living in the Western Isles.
My first novel was reviewed by The Guardian “A remarkable debut”. I don’t remember writing it. Kids, just say no!!
The closest to famous is a celebrated though deceased lung surgeon.
Baron Green of Hurstpierpoint (born 7 November 1948), is a British politician, former Conservative Minister of State for Trade and Investment, former group chairman of HSBC Holdings plc, and Anglican priest.
Bastard.
Are you sure that’s not Baron Greenback?
No.
I am unique.
You are indeed unique but you do share a name with a jazz group leader, amongst others.
Lemme guess, lemme guess…
Is it Miles Davis?
Imposters.
Weirdly when I was a golden haired youth of unsurpassing loveliness there was a girl who resided a couple of streets away with the same surname and whose forname was Peta. No relation and we never met. She wasn’t in the same league as far as loveliness though but that goes without saying of course.
She was very active against the fur trade, though.
I’ve worked with a pianist who has the same name as you.
Not only the right letters, but in the right order..
My name is John, so, yeah, quite a few celebs
and more than a few songs, TV shows and fillums
Quite a good children’s author, and some dude who’s a big cheese in the NHS in Norfolk. There’s also someone on Facebook with the same name as me who is even worse-looking than I am, which has to be some kind of record.
Which means you share your name with my mate, (though he has just retired from the NHS.)
Is he dead ugly? Go on, he’ll never see this
Are you Enid Blyton?
What, in these shoes?
I doubt you’d survive.
You cheap lousy…. person
George W Bush’s Secretary of Homeland Security – but I don’t think anyone’s ever confused me with him
I have the same name as a late Antipodean artist – he was a neo-expressionist painter who lived in New Zealand and, in his later life, Australia, 1929–2019.
As far as I know no one famous has my name, but Google shows someone who is a police officer who often attends court cases. Anyone casually Googling me will assume that I am constantly involved in a variety of criminal activity.
Boneshaker, no give me producer!
Nobody else has the same full name as me, but my surname is quite distinctive – shared with some quite well-known scientists, a historian, a recently-deceased painter and a medic. It’s most commonly associated with a disease, discovered by the medic.
English rock singer/keyboardist/harmonica player (now deceased).
England rugby union international (winger).
English football left winger (now deceased)
C of E Bishop and beekeeper.
Dirtcar Racer.
Structural Engineer.
Bishop AND beekeeper. A veritable hive of industry.
Bee-hold! Our saviour cometh!
There’s some Executive Producer guy at the BBC with the same name as me.
Drummer of Swiss rockers Krokus.
A Cupping Practitioner from Boise, Idaho. Celebrated in his own field at least.
If I don’t have enough money, will he spoon instead?
I am pretty good at spooning if the price is right. Just between you and me. 🤔
Thanks. Let’s take this offline.
😉
Careful Diddley, he’s got his Hejira out
It’s all happening too fast.
*dons surgical gloves*
*Whimpers. Tries to get up but feels strange, dizzy*
Relax. That’s just the choral hydrate.
Nobody. I have a hoochter teuchter Highland hillbilly name that you would expect to see “‘s Ceilidh Dance Band” suffixed to it. The mere whisper of my name will have you thinking of mountains and rivers and bonny Morag and the roaming in the gloaming.
Your real name is Hen Broon?
Yup. If you don’t see me posting for while, it’s not because I’ve flounced. It just means I’m at the But & Ben.
Michty!
Soapy Soutar? Help ma boab
Soapy looks better in shorts.
By ‘eck (in a clever cross-cultural reference)
I wonder if Retro’s real name is Francis Gay? (Sunday Post Deep Cut)
Reverse the names and………. You’ll be even further away. You take the Dee out of Dun, but never the other way around.
Having met the Retropathic one I can state that your chance of guessing his name, would be like getting wordle in one. Not impossible but bloody difficult.
It isn’t @Hawkfall.
But being sworn to secrecy, I can’t reveal his true identity.
Hen Broon and Ron Mael. Never seen in the same room together
At No.10 Glebe Street, at least.
Auchenshoogle ain’t big enough for both of us
The Number One Song In Govan.
A leading American south fine art dealer, apparently. So “famous” is perhaps stretching it a bit. Given that my surname is quite unusual and common only very locally, I’m surprised at anyone remotely famous having it. I was years ago, perhaps still am, the only chartered accountant in England and Wales with my surname. 192.com lists 29 people in the country with my name. 7 of them are me.
Another composer (more successful than myself)
And some American President chap.
Not too difficult to figure out my name then.
I share first name only with the inventor Gary Starkweather. Plus, almost certainly, someone on Eastenders. Among others. No Biblical characters though. Or Norse gods.
I don’t have you down as much of a theologian, but surely you know about The Epistle of Gary to the Ephesians?
Nope. Although I believe I do recall a drag act of a similarish name that used to do cabaret at Madame Jo-Jos back in the 80s.
An audio engineer who did some work on a shit post-split Happy Mondays album, and an author of technical books from Portsmouth who dabbled in music reviewing for local newspapers.
I’m in the credits of every album by Fareham band The Dawn Chorus. Well, I think I am – it could be him.
A Rangers footballer(dead), an Easybeat (dead), the ex mp for Ealing, famous for his bicycling, and me.
Famous is stretching it, but I share a name with one of the experts on Antiques Roadshow. I think there’s someone active in the transport field who pops up in the media. And the late leader of a cult band, though he always used an E. in between.
There’s a music journalist with my name. I’m not going to say who, but whenever you lot pile into Paul Morley my lower lip trembles something awful..
Oh happy day! You’ve just given me an idea for a thread.
Hopefully not a “let’s all make Sew cry” thread…?
Not at all. I’ll do it after work.
There’s an actor and the guy who started Carphone Warehouse.
The actor bloke was the original Kryten in Red Dwarf
Famous, no. All Google returns is a British Specialist Chancery Senior Circuit judge.
I could’ve been a Judge, but I didn’t have the Latin
To quote the line in a recently aired episode of Round the Horne ”I was sent to Yale, by my guardian, who was a yudge.”
My name comes from a Scottish heritage. There was an Shakespearean actor & a leading sociologist. Unfortunately, adding an ‘s’ at the end creates a Welsh name, which is much more common where I live, to the point where I am repeatedly having to remind people I am unique.
Tiggs The Medics sounds pretty unique to me.
My namesake (not Jim Henson) was behind live Muppets and Sesame Street shows, and another partial namesake wrote an common book on the practical side of counselling.
Mine seems to have been bagged by a perma tanned competition ballroom dancer.
There’s another one of us on Spotify which is annoying, especially as his dull new age noodling gets stuck on my artist page and has loads more hits
Two musicians called Flavia Cacace. Whooda thunk it!
Well I googled my name. What was that Hitchhiker’s Guide thing, The Total Perspective Vortex, something like that? There’s a guy who talks about food a lot, and another who writes plays.
Most of my namesakes are from the US. However the bloke who plays Elvis in the recent film comes pretty close.
But what’s in a name? Back in the 70s a young lad called Walter wrote to Dennis the Menace saying that he gets teased at school because of Dennis’s softy nemesis, also called Walter.
Dennis replied that names don’t mean a thing and gave Walter a bit of a pep talk, saying that there’s nothing wrong with being called Walter. He also told readers that they are not welcome in his club if they bully people. Bit rich coming from him, I thought.
Do as I say, not as I do eh? It’s like when Keyhole Kate told me to stop being so bloody nosey.
I cannot find anyone else with my name, famous, infamous or otherwise. I think I am probably therefore quite unusual..! This is almost certainly down to my uncommon surname, and no one gets lumbered with Nigel any more.
Thanks for that, Mr Squooplechuff!
How did you know..?
Someone who played rugby for England.
And some arsehole with an amazing dancing bear
Off topic I know cause it’s not me but people on this blog keep mentioning someone called Ken Bruce. Every time I see that name an excruciating Australian ad campaign from decades back pops into my head. “Ken Bruce has gone mad. Ken Bruce has gone mad.” So stop mentioning him! This series of ads was so well known the name Ken Bruce for a time became a synonym for “went crazy” as in “He went completely Ken Bruce on me”
Click on the below link to have all your worst fears about life in your former colonies realised. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TFJcVg1TvuY
To us in the UK to “go completely Ken Bruce” is to constantly play snippets of old pop records to people and demand the name of the artist/year of release/song title. The victim of this syndrome is basically a quiz Kurtz.
“One year out ….the horror!”
An English actor who I remember being on telly in the 80s and occasionally popping up as a villian in Hollywood movies, and a Big Brother contestant from 2004.
A loyalist paramilitary leader, whose name is usually prefaced with ‘Mad Dog’. And a management consultant.
‘Mad Dog’ is a management consultant nowadays?
Management consultants and Englishmen go out in the midday sun
There was a management heavyhitter brought into kick arse at an Australian media empire. His nickname was Chainsaw.
No, there’s only about 20 of us in the world. Unusual last name. One of them is an American surgeon with a cool specialism, and he seems to be the only non-me person who comes up when you Google my name. Well, him and an 18th C general, which is quite ace.
No one. I have a reasonably rare surname and only a couple of namesakes have popped up on Google. Senior Site Managers and Chief Exec types.
Nobody as cool as me, naturally
I’m pretty common, me, though I did liberate Kabul.
You are John Simpson and I claim my £5
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/media/2001/nov/19/warinafghanistan2001.afghanistan1
@slug
Keep it quiet please, you don’t know who’s looking!
We ain’t seen you, roight?
A well known American comedian, an eminent British linguist, a well established e-sports journo before e-sports were even a thing, a former British tennis pro, and a former Bishop of Llandaf.
…go into a bar. And the comedian says:
My real surname is very unusual, which is why I use the name of the town I was born in on here. I don’t think there’s anybody famous with it, but the only slightly interesting thing about it, is that it is also a word and surname in German. This means that it gets pronounced in an overly Teutonic way from time to time by well meaning people. Because of the German connection, it is also sometimes mistaken as Jewish, as a fair number of people in the UK with German names are Jewish. The people who make that mistake are always themselves in fact Jewish and it has led to some slightly confused conversations from time to time, like people asking me what I am doing for the New Year when it’s still September. As far as I know, from looking it up it’s a British name. I suppose the shared roots of German and English, mean some words and names occur in both languages.
Have a relatively rare surname so no mistaken identities for me. However, I work with a lady whose husband is Wayne Rooney.
If you mean a search for my name in Google, I have found several imposters.
Some are distinguished by their profession, some are clearly arseholes.
However, in an image search I am pleased to report I am the best looking. By a long way.
A well known department store in Cardiff also had my name. It has closed now
Nice to meet you, Mr Benhams.
Mrs F’s last landlord was Jon(athan) Lewis.
…and every December the receipt for the rent came in the form of a wistful indie ballad by a young woman with an acoustic guitar. It’s enough to put you off your sprouts.
My mates recent landlords have been Stirling Moss and Saddam Hussain.