Mark Levy

Ordinary People

With Famous Names

In Denver, a woman named Amelia Earhart reports on traffic from a helicopter for a local news station. The broadcast news people at that Denver TV station don’t crack a smile when they introduce Amelia Earhart in her helicopter. Maybe they were all born too late.

This got me thinking about famous names in unlikely places. With the help of an Internet search engine that uses U.S. census data to arrive at its statistics, I discovered that there are over 79,000 Amelias and almost 3,000 Earharts, but only one Amelia Earhart in America. Apparently, she’s the one flying around in a helicopter. And how many of the three Charles Lindberghs even have pilot licenses?

            There was a Howard Johnson in a company I worked for once, but sadly, he didn’t work in our cafeteria. There are 2,837 Howard Johnsons in the U.S.

            It must be difficult going through life with a famous person’s name. People either expect too much of you or don’t take you seriously. If you’re one of the three Frank Sinatras, for example, you probably have to be ready to sing a few bars of My Way at the drop of a fedora.

            Not too many Tiger Woods, yet, because only some 1,500 or fewer people are named Tiger; but I’ll bet that situation changes in the future. At this time, there’s only one Tiger Woods, which should provide some comfort to the rest of the players on the Professional Golfers Association tour. We might eventually see some Tiger Smiths, Tiger Browns and Tiger Johnsons become celebrities, for that matter. Or we could soon see other not-so-famous Shaquilles, Beyonces and Chers. I’m surprised there are only 15,000 Elvises.

            Barack Obama is not high on the list of popular names. In fact, there’s only one. I think Barack Schwartz or Barack Harrigan would have a nice ring.

            Have any other of the two Mickey Rooneys or the 4,400 Elizabeth Taylors been married eight times?

            There doesn’t seem to be an Alfonse Capone, but apparently there are nine Albert Capones, five Alfred Capones, and 13 Alan Capones. At least some of those 27 Capones are called “Al Capone” by their close friends, I suppose.

            Of all the 18,000 Lincolns in America, how many would you guess are Abrahams? The Internet says only three.

            Are all the 342 Bob Hopes funny?

            You probably don’t realize that over 500 people are named Roy Rogers, yet there are only 429 Dale Evans’ to go around, making for almost a hundred lonesome cowboys, assuming they’re all cow people who want to hook up with a cowgirl counterpart having her famous name. Good luck, pardners, and happy trails to you.

            There are estimated to be 19 William Shakespeares, but nary a Hamlet in sight, prince or otherwise.

            Here’s another interesting statistic: only 276 people are named Jaclyn Smith, which just doesn’t seem like enough.

            Although there are over 42,000 Levys, 201 are named Mark Levy, believe it or not, but I’m the only one you get to hear on Weekend Radio.

            If you’d like to check the frequency of your name or someone else’s, visit the web site: HowManyOfMe.com.

Mark Levy is an attorney with the Binghamton-based law firm of Hinman Howard and Kattell. He is a contributing editor to ragazine.cc with Ryan Miosek (Feeding the Starving Artist), and an occasional contributor to NPR, where his comments can be heard some Saturdays at noon.