Jun 26, 2009

How Many of Me?

by Lisa Radding lradding@ethnictechnologies.com

There are only two of “me,” that is to say, two people named “Lisa Radding.” I know this because the name Radding was created at Ellis Island and thus all Raddings are related to me. Additionally, my family has done extensive genealogical research to find these Raddings and connect them all in an enormous family tree. There is one other Lisa with the last name Radding, a distant cousin of mine (who had the name first.)

But if you don’t have a last name like mine, you might be curious how many of “you” are out there. Visit this website, How Many of Me, for the answer. Granted, the site only gives you an estimate, based on how popular your first and last names are (according to the 1990 census data.) Actually in my case, it’s wrong. The site predicts that I am unique! But that’s pretty close.

This site also doesn’t take ethnicity into account in its predictions. Why should ethnicity matter? Well, Jose Gonzales is a much more likely combination than Jose Kowalski or Jose Tanaka. Unlike with E-TECH, this website looks at Jose and Gonzales or Jose and Kowalski independently from each other rather than looking at the name as a whole. But then again, this site isn’t in the business of predicting ethnicity the way we are.

Regardless of its flaws, it’s still fun to see the rough estimate… although you probably have one already. Who hasn’t googled themselves?

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