The Curse of the Common Name

After completing some exhaustive scientific research (two minutes on my phone while in line at Starbucks), I’ve confirmed what I’ve always strongly suspected:

I have a very common name.

Over the past century, Mark is the 16th most common American first name for men. Johnson is the second most common surname. Combining those stats, the website HowManyOfMe.com miraculously figured out that there are 10,627 other guys in the U.S. proudly named Mark Johnson. Spread out evenly among the 3,007 counties in the United States, that puts 3.53 Mark Johnsons in every stinking county. Crunch the numbers further and it turns out that I’m most likely to A) Become a victim of identity theft and B) Be mistaken for someone you went to high school with.

Admit it. You either went to high school with a Mark Johnson or know one from somewhere else, myself not included. You’ve probably dated one, gotten into a drunken brawl with one, or sat beside one in church. A Mark Johnson has likely rotated your tires, filled your cavities, or possibly even tested your cocker spaniel for heartworms. Chandler Bing on “Friends” even threatened to change his name to either Mark Johnson or John Markson because his own name was so weird. (See the video at the end of this post.)

If you google Mark Johnson, you are presented with 717 million results. I’m not kidding.

For the sake of comparison, if you google my wife’s maiden name, Holly Soderquist, you get 50,000 results. HowManyOfMe.com says there is one Holly Soderquist in the entire United States. ONE!

The Curse of the Common Name is not an affliction reserved only for Mark Johnsons. We share this malady with all the James, Michael, Robert, David, and Mary Smiths; the Maria Garcias, and the Maria Hernandezes. The Robert and James Johnsons are also doomed to the anonymous rabble of the over-named. In fact, any pairing of a Biblical first name along with Smith, Williams, Brown, Johnson, Garcia, or Hernandez relegates the owner of the name to obscurity, with a very few exceptions.

As a kid, I can remember my dad correcting me when I complained that Johnson was a common name.

“It’s not common,” he said with his typical optimism. “It’s popular.”

From that perspective, I guess it’s not always a bad thing. It’s kind of like becoming famous without having done anything, like Kim Kardashian, except without all the cash. I mean, I’m practically a household name. Problem is, when I arrive at the Famous People Awards ceremony to pick up my first-place trophy for Celebrities We’ve Heard Of, But We Aren’t Sure From Where category, I’ll be sharing the stage with 10,626 other guys.

We parents should really put a little more thought into this naming thing. In one half-baked decision, we’re either burdening our kid with a lifetime of identity blandness or handing them the keys to a Porsche.

For example, babies strutting out of Labor & Delivery with the following names are practically pre-destined for stardom: Gordon Lightfoot, Ernest Hemingway, Angelina Jolie, Thurl Ravenscroft (“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”), Rip Torn, Judge Reinhold, Charlton Heston, Uma Thurman, and so on. Some have become famous with names that are so unusual, nobody is really sure how to pronounce them, which is one reason they’re successful, I’m convinced. Take Zooey Deschanel, Brett Favre, Amanda Seyfried, and Shia LaBeouf, for example. (Try reading that sentence out loud.)

Even Ben Stiller doesn’t know how to pronounce Bret Fav-ruh.

Sure, these stars had to be somewhat talented too, but people just expected them to be good in the first place, so the game was already skewed. Gordon Lightfoot probably showed up with a set of spoons at his first talent show as a 2nd grader and was summarily given the blue ribbon without having to perform at all.

“Oh, that’s little Gordon Lightfoot. His name is awesome. Go ahead and give him the blue ribbon.”

However, the inevitable Mark Johnson who was his competition could’ve replicated Beethoven’s Ninth using nothing but two popsicle sticks, but wouldn’t have impressed anyone.

“Oh, that’s just one of the Mark Johnsons — I’m not sure which. There’s two more waiting in the wings. Moving on!”

This is precisely why I often include my middle initial in my pen name. It’s a weak attempt at trying to somehow distinguish myself from the other guys, and frankly, it’s an uphill battle. For most people, it’s hard enough to attain any notoriety at all, but with a name like Mark Johnson, I’m not only competing with the rest of the world, but also with the plethora of my fellow Mark Johnsons.

To make matters worse, several have already beat me to it. At press time, I can name you three relatively well-known Mark Johnsons — the player from the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” US Olympic hockey team, the Hollywood movie producer of “Rain Man,” “Good Morning, Vietnam,” and “The Natural,” and the Florida-based clawhammer banjo player.

OK, two.

So right here, right now, in front of God and everybody, I have set for myself one monumental goal:

I intend to become THE Mark Johnson, kind of like THE Ohio State University.

From here on out, when this classicly vanilla, endlessly forgettable, white-bread American name is mentioned in casual conversation, I intend to brashly dominate the references, much to the chagrin of the other 10,626 guys, including the already famous three.

I plan to become famous-er than them.

Much like Sting or Ringo Starr or Clint Eastwood or Abraham Lincoln, my name, from this day forward, will elicit one and only one mental image in the minds and hearts of millions across the globe.

“Oh, yeah,” they’ll say. “Mark Johnson. He’s that ‘doofus’ guy.”

All you other Mark Johnsons can thank me when you see me.

You thought I was kidding? It’s right there at the :10 mark.