Joel
Joel.
It’s not a common name.
In fact, it is the 280th most common first name.
The Old Testament contains a book of Joel. He is referenced as one of twelve Minor Prophets. The word “minor” has to do with the length of the book, not implying that Joel was a small guy or that his prophecies were in any way less significant. I mean, let’s face it… a Word from God is a Word from God, right?
Anyhow, according to HowManyOfMe.com, there are 238,074 people in the U.S. with the first name Joel.
But am I the only Joel Comm in the U.S.? How about the world?
According to the same site, I am the only one in the United States.
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And when I do a Google search for my name in quotes (to be certain that it is me), I don’t find any others with my name.
For some reason, Bing.com delivers 19,900,000 resuts for my name. Yeah, right.
But back to just Joel.
A Google search for my first name, Joel, brings up 65,500,000 results. That’s a lot of pages of Joel!
For the past three years I have fluctuated between the first and second page of results. I’ve been as high as #5 (page one) and am currently showing as #11, the first listing on page two.
Granted, I doubt there are many people who just search for someone’s first name to locate an individual (hey, does anyone know where I can find John?), but it is interesting just the same.
So who are the Joel’s that I keep company with?
Joel Spolsky, the creator of JoelonSoftware.com has maintained the #1 spot for as long as I can remember.
Joel Osteen, the flamboyant so-called preacher of that Houston megachurch is in the #2 spot. (As an aside, my spidey senses tingle when I see or hear that guy. Something is not quite right…)
Joel Coen, the film director of Raising Arizona fame.
Billy Joel. Hey, Joel is NOT his first name. How did he get in there? Besides, the guy hasn’t written a great song in twenty years. Not fair.
And then there is Joel Selmeier, the owner of Joel.com.
Joel is a nice guy who I have corresponded with a number of times. He is using the domain as a personal page. I told him if anyone deserved the domain Joel.com it was me. He said he would keep me in mind should he ever decide to part with the site. Yeah, and pigs may fly.
An image search of Google with my name in quotes turns up over 14,000 results! Photos of me with and without my goatee. Pictures of me with other people. Images of my products. Many duplicates of my books. I didn’t know I had that many images out there.
Also interesting is to see what people search for in relation to my name. When you type in “Joel Comm” on Google, here are some of the suggested searches you will see.
It appears most people know exactly what they are looking for. It’s not a surprise to see folks searching for my books, products, and of course, ifart.
So there you have it. Just some random thoughts about my name.
I’m going to keep trying to get higher up on the search engine results with the name “Joel”. If you’d like to link to my blog, you might consider using only the keyword Joel to do it! That would help me in my quest. 🙂
Your name is apparently less common than mine – yet is known far more.
Your name also inspired my newest acroname:
Just One Edge Leading Can Often Merit Mention
http://acronames.weebly.com/joel-comm.html
Regardless of our name, each of us is unique – with something special to share. Even if you (eventually) find someone else with the same name, there will still only be one YOU. Thanks for being who you are – and for sharing so much with the rest of us.
It says I’m the only Garry Dufresne (with 2 “r’s”). For a long time I thought I was probably the only Gary Dufresne period . . . 1 or 2 r’s. But then one day I got a call from a boy trying to find his father with the same name.
I helped him a bit and found 3 other Gary Dufresnes in Washington State alone.
I don’t know if he ever found his father.
There are only 25 Tina Cahill in the entire United States…to dam easy to find, darn!
I have a common name. According to that website, there are 5,546 people in the U.S. named John Cook.
Not too bad… There are only 24 Tricia Gardner’s in the world but even better if you search Tricia Gardner I am on the first page several times and even number 1 on the first page… Thanks Joel… True Eye opener!
ONLY 2 People in the US with my name 🙂
Listening to “Wait, Wait don’t tell me” I heard today that babies are being named after the characters in Twilight.. a year or so ago it was all Hermoine and Harry.
Twilight names Jacob, Isabella and Cullen (spelling could be Waaaaaaay of as I am way too old to read those books…
I would have named my baby in the late 80’s Jacob but the dog across the street was Jake. I wanted to name a baby girl Isabella back in the 90’s… Cullen I guess is a Twilight character’s last name.. Anyway I was way ahead of my time on those names. Who knew? They’d be in their early 20’s late teens with cool names… or maybe baby names. Maybe they would hate it.
Maureen McCabe is a terribly common name. The artist on the east coast and I vie for Google honors. I forget all the others, Maureen McCabes. I own MaureenMcCabe.com and have it on Facebook.
Just Maureens. I have a Ning.com page called the Maureen Corps. Ning.com is doing away with free pages… and I lost interest early on… and my password to get back in.
You may see me write a post about YOU on ActiveRain a real estate network. That’s where I heard of you. Not to be a name dropper but Cheryl Johnson real estate tech queen of LA said to subscribe to your blog when I mentioned I was trying Adsense. Poor Cheryl, Cheryl Johnson has got to be very, very common. Perhaps this is the post for pete’s sake.
I may blog about you…
Hi Joel,
Interesting post considering that it’s nearly all about you.
Names are interesting if you go into their meanings, history etc.
That link for checking how many of me there are is one I’ll be checking.
As for linking to your blog with “Joel” I will do it if I ever blog about you.
I’d do that if I met you for sure.
As it is let’s see if I read something from you that will compel me to write about it.
I’m sure there are things like that which you wrote.
Vance
hi Joel
i want you as a mentor seriuosly. i’m very serious to learn and earn online..i really look forward to you and john chow. please give me a chance to be your student. i would really appreciate it. consider me pls. thanks