Apr. 15th, 2003 05:21 pm
Name droppings
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muckefuckEvery so often, I Google™ myself. Like masturbation, I'm sure it's something everyone tries, but most people are probably too embarrassed to talk about. (Not ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lhn, though!) Today's vanity search pulled up much the same hits as past searches--mostly old Usenet posts that have been archived someplace or other.
So I chopped off my given name and did a surname search. It's distinctive enough that it never pulls up that many pages. Everyone who bears it is for a close relative (i.e. first cousin once-removed or better) anyway. So I was intrigued to find someone with the given name "Tommy", since I've never met a relative named that. The cite mentioned my Dad's home town, so I wonder if this might be some obscure cousin. (We've pretty much lost touch with Dad's younger brother and his first wife, so who knows if one of them has spawned a "Tommy" or not.) Next time I talk to Dad (two weeks at most), I'll ask.
But I was absolutely floored to find a "Heinrich". In all my years, I've never, ever found my name in German context--despite its German origins. The explanation is that a ü became a i either when our ancestors migrated or shortly after. Even variants with ü (or, in Belgium, u) are thin on the ground. Breathlessly, I clicked on the link, only to find the page was in a character set my system doesn't recognise. Nuts! I paged further and found another cite, this one to a complete listing of names of characters who have appeared in Dragon magazine. Heinrich was, oddly enough, a denizen of 13th-century Novgorod.
The other shoe dropped: I searched the title of the article and, as expected, foundprinceofcairo's byline.
lhn, though!) Today's vanity search pulled up much the same hits as past searches--mostly old Usenet posts that have been archived someplace or other.So I chopped off my given name and did a surname search. It's distinctive enough that it never pulls up that many pages. Everyone who bears it is for a close relative (i.e. first cousin once-removed or better) anyway. So I was intrigued to find someone with the given name "Tommy", since I've never met a relative named that. The cite mentioned my Dad's home town, so I wonder if this might be some obscure cousin. (We've pretty much lost touch with Dad's younger brother and his first wife, so who knows if one of them has spawned a "Tommy" or not.) Next time I talk to Dad (two weeks at most), I'll ask.
But I was absolutely floored to find a "Heinrich". In all my years, I've never, ever found my name in German context--despite its German origins. The explanation is that a ü became a i either when our ancestors migrated or shortly after. Even variants with ü (or, in Belgium, u) are thin on the ground. Breathlessly, I clicked on the link, only to find the page was in a character set my system doesn't recognise. Nuts! I paged further and found another cite, this one to a complete listing of names of characters who have appeared in Dragon magazine. Heinrich was, oddly enough, a denizen of 13th-century Novgorod.
The other shoe dropped: I searched the title of the article and, as expected, found
princeofcairo's byline.