What's Your Name? An Excerpt

A draft from Effective Internet Presence, Now required for success in business and life, coming Jan 3rd, an absolutely free ebook.

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What's Your Name?

I, Ted Demopoulos, am lucky. So is Seth Godin. Ditto for Zaphod Beeblebrox, and Rumpelstiltskin.

If you google me, you find me. Yes, there are a couple of other people named “Ted Demopoulos” out there, and you won’t find them on the first 50 or so pages of search engine results.

Are YOU lucky? What if I google you? Is your name Jim Smith, or Bill Bailey, or Sue Jones?

Are there hundreds of you in the New York City phonebook, never mind on the Internet?

Worry not, Dear Jim/Bill/Sue, people CAN still find you (details coming up!), but I STRONGLY (hence the obnoxious all caps) recommend you make it easy on them.

Let’s say there were lots people named “Ted Demopoulos” out there, instead of just a very, very few. Well, I could legitimately use any of the following variants of my name everywhere it appears online, as well as offline: on my business cards, my resume, voice mail, in the phone directory, etc.

Ted J Demopoulos, Theo Demopoulos, Theodore Demopoulos
Theodoros Demopoulos (the traditional Greek spelling), Theodore James Demopoulos

Hmmm, there doesn’t seem to be a single reference to “Theodoros Demopoulos” on the Internet, but in my case “Ted Demopoulos” is unique enough.

Here is a concrete example. “David Scott” is a pretty bad name.  Google “David Scott,” and you’ll find the astronaut that walked on the moon, the six-time Ironman world champion, the congressman, two college professors, and two authors – and that’s only on the first page of Google results!

What’s a “David Scott” to do? Well, my friend David Scott decided to use his middle name and became “David Meerman Scott.” He is the only “David Meerman Scott” around, and he uses this full name online and professionally.

More examples:

·    George Bush, the US president guy, had a problem. There was a previous president with the same name, probably his uncle or cousin or some other relative. Suddenly, “George Bush” became “George W. Bush,” differentiating himself from all the other George Bushes who were president.

·    You also may have heard of the famous actor “Michael Fox.” He goes by “Michael J Fox.” Seems there is another actor, one no one has ever heard of, named “Michael Fox.”

You could even make up a middle name and just use it if you want to. This is perfectly legal in many countries, although I’m not a lawyer and you may want to check with one. Do you think comedian “Andrew Dice Clay” really was named “Dice” by his parents? I doubt it – google him if you really care.

You could even change your entire name! Although that’s somewhat extreme, many people do it. Actors in particular seem to although they often change from great names to generic common names, such as Muzyad Yakhoob who changed his name to the far more common Danny Thomas. Well, Muzyad made that change pre-Internet.

So if you’re Jim Smith, David Scott, or Bill Bailey or Sue Jones, whattayado?

·    Well, Jim Smith changed his name to “LL Cool J.”
·    David Scott became  “David Meerman Scott.”
·    Bill Bailey became “Axl Rose.”
·    Sue Jones? Well she did nothing, which is why you don’t know her, but rumors are she is about to marry Zaphod Beeblebrox and take his last name.

Comments and Feedback solicited!

Licensed under the Create Commons License,
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/

No commercial use or changes allowed.

Now Available, the whole ebook!:
Effective Internet Presence, Now required for success in business and life

Comments

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Hey George BD Jones, good creative thinking and I'm adding you to Effective Internet Presence if you don't mind!

[Robert Porter]

Sounds like a great reason to buy your next book! So, get busy there and "Git 'er done!"

Robert Primus Porter

[Ellene Breedlove Davis]

Good Morning, Ted

Having an uncommon maiden name is a plus in lots of ways. My common first name and last name make it more important to use an usual middle name.

I'm ready to start blogging but I'm having trouble working this long name into a blog title. Any suggestions? I'm a fine art artist.

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Robert,

We'll see about a next "printed paper" book -- someday, but only maybe in 2008 :)

Ellene,
Two initial thought:
1) You can use your own name as the blog name, similar to what Seth Godin and others do
2) Pick any name you find appropriate for your blog, and simply the use of your full name will make finding you and your blog online easy.

I notice you already have http://www.ellenebreedlovedavis.com/

[Nupur Maskara]

I have no namesake- so am very easy to Google. I think rhymes are great mnemonics- hence I have used my nickname with a rhyme as my URL. This could be another option for the John Bulls and Jane Does of the world. Once you decide to tweak your name, you have the freedom of aligning it with your personality to a greater extent than you do with your birth name.

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Nupur,
I like the URL!