What's so important about Owain Yeoman?

He's unique. Or, at least, his name is.

When you search for this name, you immediately get one and only one person as a hit. Many hits, yes, but still all for the same person.

Not for me. My name is just normal -- not John Smith but ... well, pretty basic. Nothing unique, not even in the combination of the names. Well, my middle name is a bit different, but I don't use it. If I use it at all, like on my credit card name, it's abbreviated. Why? Because I don't want to have to spell it out, etc. Then again, I often have to spell out my first and last names for people, particularly over the phone.

So, I'm hard to find on the Internet. Sometimes this is a benefit, but if like me you have written some books, you kind of want to make it easy for people to find them. Googling my name doesn't do that. I tell people to look for the name of my co-author, which is much more unique.

So, while I've always liked my name -- very American and simple -- now I'm seeing the downside of homogenation. It makes me feel more for people with a name like John Smith in a large organization that have to create user names with #s in them.

So, here's to simple ... and invisible. And, to unique ... and findable. Maybe I should create a unique alias for publishing. Maybe I can rent one from Owain?