I am a baby name Googler

Posted May 9th 2007 4:53PM by Sarah Gilbert
Filed under: Newspapers, Internet, Google (GOOG)

truman, everett, and the unnamed google subject

I'm pregnant, with my third child, and the ultrasound gods did not smile upon me. So whereas I was able to select my previous sons' names (Everett, a family name, and Truman, a presidential name that was distinguished by being both unusual and easily pronounceable) by the time I hit five months, with this baby, I'm lost in a sea of uncertainty -- and I only have a little more than two months to go. I have a girl's name, but for boys, what to do?

So, I've been Googling. A friend suggested "Miles" and "Lowell" and (when paired with my husband's name) I quickly eliminated "Miles Hanson" as far too popular, so much so that it appeared on an IRS publication. Ick. And this is the top result for "Lowell Hanson" ... hmmm. While I ultimately discarded "Lowell" for other reasons, the Google factor was definitely in there.

When other bloggers read the Wall Street Journal's report on baby name Googling, they showed a bit of skepticism; Brian White didn't really believe that brands are competing with baby names, while Marc Perton thought Googling for unique names was, most importantly, not a good SEO strategy.

Haha. When I saw the article I just Googled "Kohler Hanson." Hmm... not bad...

If you have any good ideas, by all means, send 'em my way. You might want to Google first.

Tags: baby, baby names, baby seo, BabyNames, BabySeo, Everett, everett hanson, EverettHanson, googler, googlicious, journal, kohler, name googling, NameGoogling, names, search engine optimization, SearchEngineOptimization, seo, truman, truman hanson, TrumanHanson, wall street journal, WallStreetJournal, wsj

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

5-10-2007 @ 8:02AM

Neil Street said...

I love this story. I posted about it on my blog yesterday, at http://babynamesgarden.com/blog/?p=130
As I said there, I think Google is the wrong place to start. Start looking for the names at a good list of unique baby names, such as http://www.babynamesgarden.com/uniquebabynames.aspx
and you can come up with some great names that are unlikely to ever see much competition. How about Parsifal for a boy? Or Flick for a girl? (These are real names). For parents who need to be different, there are tons of really unusual names out there.
On the other hand, I doubt that in 20 years or so, people will still be using Google to check their name. I'm sure the technology will have changed.