I see four Andrew Plotkins on IMDB, as a matter of fact:
3 Likes
Meh, the other two arenāt worth bringing up in this thread. (Assuming it even is two different people, and not an IMDB error.)
3 Likes
I share the name (which is pretty common in Italy, especially in Florence where Iām from) with one gold medal archer in the Olympics and a writer of children books. My own self-publication is somewhere linked to his bio. So much for me becoming famous: Iād have to settle for a nick if I really want to publish a novel (which I wonāt: you know, ADHD).
Ps: the most uncommon named guy, Keanu Reeves, seems to have a COUSIN with the same exact name. What are the odds?
6 Likes
I changed to a new dentist and discovered they not only had someone else with my name, but who had the same birthday! That was tricky and confusing to sort out.
7 Likes
A few years ago I received a letter from the UK Atomic Energy Authority. They had come to the conclusion that I was a good choice to be Chief Inspector of Radiological Safety, and they sent me a nice certificate to commemorate their decision.
Then it turned really weird. Someone where I worked, claiming to be me, decided it was meant for him instead. And to rub it in he kept walking around in a high-viz vest and making clicking noises.
3 Likes
Oh man. Now I really, really want a Google, but for book character names. Iām curious if there is an Andrew Schultz out there, and what genre itās in.
3 Likes
Thereās this other J. J. Guest, a Welsh engineer, entrepreneur and politician. According to a family legend, our family were connected with the iron industry in both Yorkshire and in Wales, but my parents did their family trees years ago and they never found a connection to this guy. Itās possible that we have a common ancestor. If so, the money and the baronetcy did not come down our line! However I did get my DNA tested a few years ago (donāt ask me why, it was a gift) and I am apparently 19% Welsh, so who knows?
6 Likes
Iām on Academia.edu and am currently being rather plagued by a namesake Vivienne Dunstan who seems to be publishing on medical / reproductive / child medicine stuff, and Academia.edu keeps asking me if these are my papers. No, Iām a 17th/18th/19th century historian! I am a bit boggled 
My husband also sometimes gets sent Gmail for another Martin Dunstan.
8 Likes
Hahaha same.
My actual name + surname combo seems to be the only one on the internet. So I prefer going by a username instead 
4 Likes
8 Likes
My favourite IF author doppelganger is Scott Adams of Adventure International fame. Whenever I mention his name, people think I mean Scott Adams of Dilbert fame.
7 Likes
At least there you can say āthe game Scott Adamsā and clear it up. Pity Steve Jackson.
4 Likes
There was an exotic dancer named Felicity Banks that came up for a few years (she was Miss Nude 2014, very impressive), but Iām proud to say I pushed her WAY down the ratings years ago. If you google my name, you get me, me, me. Mostly for my novels rather than my games, which makes sense as I was writing novels for 15 years before I started writing games in 2015.
If you look hard enough, thereās a wrestler who shares my name now.
And a bitcoin bot.
11 Likes
To the best of my knowledge (i.e. a lazy google), there isnāt another person with my name on this planet (admittedly thatās easier for us Spaniards because of the double surname).
5 Likes
Another Amanda Walker shared a vet with me, and the vet kept trying to give me cat medicine. I consistently had to tell them, āNo, Iām the one with the dog.ā It was so exasperating that I changed vets. And another one used to work in the same public school system I taught at, and we were always getting each othersā email, which was awkward since some of it was sensitive information about students. We never could work that one out.
6 Likes
There was a moment when an image search for āZed Lopezā resulted in the mug shot of a guy arrested in Florida on drug charges.
I am also not a cute boy in the Phillipines, nor am I any of the other (apparently several) Filipino Zed Lopezes, which is a shame, because they all seem to be much cooler than I am.
7 Likes
I keep saying we should all just be issued UUIDs at birth, but do people listen? Nooooo.
10 Likes
Or conversely, āthe abominable Steve Adamsā.
Musicians make out worse in sharing names with hard right wackos: Joe Walsh, Steve Miller, even Rush:
6 Likes
So, @zarf is the third one? If I remember right, he did write Freefall. Also List and List.
2 Likes
I definitely spent a while thinking the Dilbert author had also written IF 
5 Likes