{"id":2610,"date":"2015-05-04T12:33:50","date_gmt":"2015-05-04T16:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/?p=2610"},"modified":"2015-05-04T12:33:50","modified_gmt":"2015-05-04T16:33:50","slug":"unique-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2015\/05\/unique-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Unique Names"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/Vsauce\/\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Stevens<\/a>, whose videos I generally enjoy, posits an interesting question:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/f8WsO__XcI0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In typical\u00a0Vsauce fashion, he delves into other issues, but the video prompted me to ponder the uniqueness of my name, Brian Arner.<\/p>\n<p>For years I assumed that I was the world&#8217;s only Brian Arner.\u00a0 Outside of my immediate family, I was only aware of a small clan of Arners, living near Chattanooga, and none of them were named Brian.<\/p>\n<p>Then, when I was in my 20s, I heard from a former teacher that he had helped move a relative onto campus&#8211;named Brian Arner!\u00a0 This was disconcerting.\u00a0 An email had stripped me of my singularity.\u00a0 I shared the world with a namesake.\u00a0 The once orderly cosmos now churned with confusion\u00a0 What was he like?\u00a0 Was he stealing my identity?\u00a0 Would I soon be saddled with someone else&#8217;s debt?<\/p>\n<p>That was not the end of it.\u00a0 Later, when I put a website up, I was surprised&#8211;and amused&#8211;to have a few emailers contact me, asking if they could purchase my music.\u00a0 Turns out there&#8217;s yet another Brian Arner, a distantly-related <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianarnerministries.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Christian vocal artist<\/a>.\u00a0 He&#8217;s older than me.\u00a0 So I was not the first, or last, Brian Arner.<\/p>\n<p>In the early 2000s, when I became interested in genealogy, I discovered the Arner family is much larger than I imagined, especially in Pennsylvania, where the family first settled.\u00a0 According to <a href=\"http:\/\/names.mongabay.com\/data\/a\/ARNER.html\" target=\"_blank\">this site<\/a>, there were 1,293 Arners counted in the 2000 U.S. Census, making it the 19,376th most common surname.<\/p>\n<p>Based on a statistical calculation of name frequency, the website <a href=\"http:\/\/howmanyofme.com\">HowManyOfMe.com<\/a> estimates there may be six Brian Arners in America.<\/p>\n<div style=\"color: #000;\">\n<table style=\"background-color: white; text-align: center;\" border=\"0\" width=\"350\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"1\" bgcolor=\"#FFFFFF\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color: #0066b3; color: white; font: 16px\/1.1 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">HowManyOfMe.com<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border: 1px solid black;\">\n<table style=\"background-color: white; text-align: center;\" border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" bgcolor=\"#FFFFFF\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding-top: 2px;\" width=\"120\"><a style=\"text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http:\/\/howmanyofme.com\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px black;\" src=\"http:\/\/extimg.howmanyofme.com\/extimages\/howmany-logo.png\" alt=\"Logo\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font: 16px\/1.1 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000;\">There are<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/extimg.howmanyofme.com\/autoimg\/Z0WyIKV-_m1E8eOP-2SYqw%2C%2C\/count.png\" alt=\"6\" \/><br \/>\npeople with <span id=\"hmpu\">the name <a style=\"color: #0066b3; text-decoration: underline; font: bold 16px\/1.1 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\" href=\"http:\/\/howmanyofme.com\/search\/?given=Brian&amp;sur=Arner\">Brian Arner<\/a><\/span> in the U.S.A.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><a style=\"color: #0066b3; text-decoration: underline; font: bold 16px\/1.8 Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\" href=\"http:\/\/howmanyofme.com\">How many have your name?<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>So while unique names still exist, mine is not one of them.\u00a0 But I&#8217;ve learned that&#8217;s OK.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve had a few minor identity hiccups online,\u00a0 but no harm no foul.\u00a0 People don&#8217;t treat me as a cheap clone.\u00a0 The debt collectors haven&#8217;t beaten down my door looking for someone else.\u00a0 The sun still rises and sets every day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Because ultimately I am not <em>Brian Arner<\/em>, the two words people use to describe me.\u00a0 As Shakespeare famously <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/A_rose_by_any_other_name_would_smell_as_sweet\">mused<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What&#8217;s in a name? that which we call a rose<br \/>\nBy any other name would smell as sweet<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We get our uniqueness, our <em>real<\/em> identity, from who we are as people, not from our names.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2015\/05\/unique-names\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to Unique Names\"><p>Michael Stevens, whose videos I generally enjoy, posits an interesting question: In typical\u00a0Vsauce fashion, he delves into other issues, but the video prompted me to ponder the uniqueness of my name, Brian Arner. For years I assumed that I was the world&#8217;s only Brian Arner.\u00a0 Outside of my immediate family, I was only aware of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2610"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2616,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2610\/revisions\/2616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}