Even my name doesn't belong to me

[pjthompson]

So I was playing around on google (no, really, I wasn't searching for my own name) and quite by fluke and accident came across a short story published on a writers' site called Helium. "Taking the Bus" by Pj Thompson.

Nope, so not me. No periods after the initials. I thought I had that copyrighted. Alas, you can't copyright a name. No bio listed for this author with the story, either.

If he/she is PJ Thompson h/she is just as entitled to h/er/is name as me, but dang. Bad enough some damned businessman gobbled up pjthompson.com and somebody's sitting on pjthompson.net—now some writer is writing under PJ Thompson?

Having found that, I did a big more in-depth searching and found there's a P.J. Thompson who has done a great many academic articles in the biomed field. Not me, either. And one P. J. Thompson wrote The Poetry of Brecht. Not me, though I might have liked to have written that one. I digs me some Brecht. And some British guy writing travel blogs, somebody writing reviews at Amazon German, a poster on diet blogs, and someone commenting on hominysnark's blog...oh wait, that was me.

But the list of wannabe PJ Thompsons is endless. Mainly because the list of PJ Thompsons is endless. It's apparently a very common initial set, and I remember reading somewhere that Thompson is the 16th most common name in the United States.

As my uncle, Hunter S. Thompson, once said...Okay, so as far as I know, I'm not related to Hunter S. Thompson. Given his proclivity for booze and bizarreness, he certainly should belong in my family tree, but...no.

Anyway, back to Uncle Hunter: "Paranoia is just another word for ignorance."

There isn't enough ignorance on the interdweeb, not nearly enough.

Comments

[wldhrsjen3.livejournal.com]

I hear you. I went to school with no less than six other Jennifers. *shakes head* And there are three women with my exact name in the area phone book. I've never googled it...somehow, I don't want to know how many not-mes are out there.

[pjthompson]

I got a horrifying glimpse of this one time when I went to a department store and asked them to look up my charge number (back in the day when you could still do that). There was page after page of Pamela Thompsons. *sigh*

[darkspires.livejournal.com]

There are two other living mes that are writers. There is Frederik Pohl's wife, who also shares my middle name and it is also spelled with an e at the end. The scarey part is she looks like an older version of me. That is I hope I look as good as her when I retire.

Then there is a very high-brow professor of political science who writes equally high-brow books.

Oh, and I/we must be well known in the Uk as there is a hotel chain bearing my/our name.

[pjthompson]

Dude! The businessman who stole my name/domain is a Brit. Those British !##$@*&(. ;-)

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

We have to get rid of the name thieves. A while ago, someone named Jodi Meadows emailed me...apparently having found jodimeadows.com (which is miiiine!) and emailed my jodi.meadows@gmail to tell me she shared my name. Same spelling and everything. She lives in Seattle. And she's a writer. And a poet. And a high priestess of something. It was a strange email, let me tell you.

After that, I looked up the other Jodi Meadowses. One plays golf in New Zealand, one is something I forgot in W. VA. And another one is music teacher at a Baptist college in VA. And then there's this writer one in Elkton, and she has ferrets and a cat... Wait.

Mine isn't as common as your name, so it was quite surprising to find other mes! I imagine it's just a pain for you. :P

Maybe you could grab p-j-thompson.com or something? Or the .net? I bet it could still get confusing, though. :S

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

Stories like this and Pam's makes me very glad that if there is ever anyone with the same name as me, I will most certainly know of them and be related to them (there are only 2 branches of my exact last name in the world, my immediate family and my counsins).

That said, there's also the drawback of not being able to blame what I do on someone else.

[pjthompson]

The Kibble clan is small and crunchy. (Sorry, lame and I can't help myself.)

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

Hey, it's better than saying we're soft in the head!

[pjthompson]

Wotta lotta Jodis! Mine's even worse if I use Pamela Thompson. :-( Oh well.

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

Maybe you just have an alternate personality that seizes upon your heretofore unknown insomnia and sends out stories without your main personality knowing it.

[pjthompson]

That could be it! (Note how I refrained from saying anything catty about the story.) (I am a paragon of self-control.)

[hominysnark.livejournal.com]

My second grade class had four Lisa's in it, so the teacher, to make things easier on herself, declared that she would call us by our first and middle names. Which didn't help, because we were Lisa Ann, Lisa Annette, Lisa Faye and Lisa Gaye.

Fortunately, my last name is unusual enough that most confusion is avoided.

[pjthompson]

There weren't too many Pamelas in my grade school, but there's gazillions of us at work. One of the IR techs and I have this whole schtick about "Good morning, Pam." "Same to you, Pam." "And how is Pam today?" "Pam is well. And Pam?" Etc. HIlarious. :-/

[frigg.livejournal.com]

hmmm there are advantages. With a name like mine, I'm constantly spelling it to people - and I can't write it anywhere even semi-anonymous because I'm the only one in the world with this combination, even if I were to skip one of my surnames. *sigh*

PS. I'm sure you'll publish and be successful enough to become *the* PJ Thompson. :)

[pjthompson]

PS. I'm sure you'll publish and be successful enough to become *the* PJ Thompson. :)

lol--yes. The PJ Thompson Overlord. ;-)

[geniusofevil.livejournal.com]

you are hilarious!

And so is your late great uncle

[pjthompson]

Family trait. :-)