Tell me why
Besides, it says there's only one of me, but I know there's actually another Jack Bogdanski in Arizona. (Via TaxProf Blog.)
| Posted at 10:05 AM | Permalink |
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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on October 27, 2006 10:05 AM.
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Comments (16)
It says there are 2 Dave Listers in the US. Heck, there are at least 2 in Portland. I am not impressed.
Posted by Dave Lister | October 27, 2006 10:39 AM
Highly underwhelmed. I saw this the other day, and it insists that there are no other Kerezmans in the country. Considering I fathered two of them, I know better!
Posted by GreyDuck | October 27, 2006 10:49 AM
I don't need a web site to tell me how many Chris McMullens there are. There's three or four in Oregon (including me).
I've had bill collectors call me thinking I'm one of the other three. That was fun.
Posted by Chris McMullen | October 27, 2006 10:56 AM
Uff da! 28,780 with my name.
Presumably this searches phone book registries, no? Given the number of people who decline to be listed, and then add that to the growing number of people who don't have a land line, and I'd say this information is less accurate with every passing month.
Posted by Dave J. | October 27, 2006 11:34 AM
And there are, supposedly, 0 people in the U.S. with my last name.
Don't tell anyone in my family...
Posted by al | October 27, 2006 12:22 PM
Same here - no others with my last name. And to think I didn't even hear about the massive Kotan eradication.
Posted by Larry | October 27, 2006 12:34 PM
Hmm...38 matches for me if I use "Jonathan", 14 if I use "Jon". Weird.
Posted by Jon | October 27, 2006 12:49 PM
# of Ted Kulongoski in USA: 0
# of Ron Saxton in USA: 4
G'head, try it yourself.
Posted by got logic? | October 27, 2006 1:01 PM
I think it's a statistical extrapolation, not an actual listing. I didn't spend a long time looking at it, but my guess is it takes the Social Security info on name popularity for first and last names and applies it to the total number of people in the U.S. Then it combines your first and last name and, statistically speaking, estimates how many of you there should be.
So it's really a good illustration of the limits of statistics. If I'm right about the methodology, it would be more accurate to say something like "There is a 99.9% probability that there are fewer than 5 Jack Bogdanski's in the U.S."
Posted by Miles | October 27, 2006 1:04 PM
# of Tom Potter in USA: 53
# of Randy Leonard in USA: 120
# of Sam Adams in USA: 245
# of Erik Sten in USA: 0
# of Dan Saltzman in USA: 2
Posted by got logic? | October 27, 2006 1:08 PM
Well, they got that right. Sten's on another planet.
Posted by Jack Bog | October 27, 2006 1:30 PM
Now, lets try that with SS numbers!
Ahora, deja el intento que con números de los SS!
Posted by Abe | October 27, 2006 3:44 PM
Weird. There are four of me. Hmmm....
Posted by ellie | October 27, 2006 6:55 PM
Well, according to this site, my wife does not live in the US.
Posted by butch | October 28, 2006 12:13 AM
Miles: that was my thought, too. You can get census data on last and first names. My guess is that they're taking the percentage of people with your last name and multiplying it by the percentage of people with your first name, and then multiplying it by the estimated number of people in the country. Something along those lines, anyway.
Posted by no one in particular | October 28, 2006 12:34 AM
I did searches for people with my name a couple years ago. Found a professor of Agricultural Economics (male) in Kaintuck and the owner of a smoked sausage boutique in Little Rock (female). They always get a phone call or a Christmas card from me. I also send vacation postcards to the guy who has my house number but lives on SE 12th. I live on NE 12th.
Quality entertainment can be really cheap.
Sometimes I also pay to put an extra hamburger in the bag of the guy behind me in the drive through.
Posted by ConcordBridge | October 28, 2006 10:36 AM