OddThinking » Name Game II

Name Game II

Filed by: Julian on September 27th 2006

I’ve talked before the popularity of names.

I’ve talked before about how Jakob Nielsen is the most preeminent Jakob in the world… or at least the Internet according to Google, which is pretty much the same thing! 🙂

Now, I am wondering if there is a web-based trivia game here.

Imagine a site that provides a common first name, and you and your friends try to guess who the highest page-ranked person of that name is.

Actually, there’s some manual work here to filter through names – company names don’t count. So, let’s try another variant. One person tries to pick a first name where they think the other person won’t be able to guess the identity of the person with the highest page-rank. Google results are listed and the players highlight the site that is the first real name. This is cached for later attempts, until a reasonable database is produced for the first game, which could be played as a single player game.

Experiment

Is this game going to be fun? Let’s play a test round and find out.

I went to a list of popular names. (Oddly, this is a different list to the one I used to last time!) I looked for the most popular US birth name of 2005.

Experiment #1: Jacob

What a coincidence. The most popular name was Jacob! (Note the spelling’s different to Jakob Nielsen.)

So who do you think the most popular Jacob is?

Once you’ve guessed, let’s Google it and find out.

#1 hit: the original Jacob. He doesn’t count. Let’s try again.

#4 hit: Jakob Nielsen! No fair! Misspelling.

#5 hit: Jacob Bernoulli who died 300 years ago. Looks like I’m going to have to make up some boundaries for this game.

Here’s my first draft:

Have to be real people – no fictional characters, no company names.
- There’s an exception for people who adopt stage names as their main name – e.g. John Wayne
Exact spelling only; Jacob and Jakob are different, even if Google thinks they’re the same because web authors can’t spell.
- There’s kind of an exception for nicknames. Asking the most popular Jacob and the most popular Jake are two different questions – even if they have the same answer.
Have to be alive. No, that’s too strict. If they have died, it must be in the last 15 years.
Have to have a first name and a last name.

#13 hit: Jacob Applebaum – The winner… but who?

Hmmm, no fun so far. Let’s try again.

Experiment #2: Michael

So who is the most popular Michael? Would you like some thinking music?

Did you say Michael Jackson?

Sorry! Michael Moore beats him!

Experiment #3: Emily

Famous Emily? Emily Dickinson has been dead for a while. I can’t think of a live one.

Hmmm.. According to Google, I should have heard of Emily Rodda.

Experiment #4: Emma

Famous Emma? Non-fictional? The best I could come with was Emma Bombeck… no wait, that’s Erma. (For the record, she’s the first Erma!)

Correct answer: Emma Watson

Giving Up?

I’m going zero for four here.

Let me skip a few of the hard ones and cherry-pick.

Ethan… Hawke? Yes!

Olivia… Newtown-John? Yes!

Julian… Lennon? I am getting good at this!, if I choose the easy ones.

Your Opinion?

Whaddya think? Is there a game here?

2 CommentsCategories: Puzzle Solving,Thoughts from the Shower

Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Comment by Alastair on September 27, 2006

I like the game. Though I can’t imagine a social setting where it could be played without looking like a bunch of people waiting on Google results. (Hangon that sounds like my workplace…)

BTW I am the #4 Alastair. Damn you Moock, Reynolds and Sim!

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Web Mentions

Who's been talking about this post?

OddThinking » Is Google Search sexist?