Joel

Joel.

It\’s not a common name.

In fact, it is the 280th most common first name.

The Old Testament contains a book of Joel. He is referenced as one of twelve Minor Prophets. The word \”minor\” has to do with the length of the book, not implying that Joel was a small guy or that his prophecies were in any way less significant. I mean, let\’s face it… a Word from God is a Word from God, right?

Anyhow, according to HowManyOfMe.com, there are 238,074 people in the U.S. with the first name Joel.

But am I the only Joel Comm in the U.S.? How about the world?

According to the same site, I am the only one in the United States.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

And when I do a Google search for my name in quotes (to be certain that it is me), I don\’t find any others with my name.

For some reason, Bing.com delivers 19,900,000 resuts for my name. Yeah, right.

But back to just Joel.

A Google search for my first name, Joel, brings up 65,500,000 results. That\’s a lot of pages of Joel!

For the past three years I have fluctuated between the first and second page of results. I\’ve been as high as #5 (page one) and am currently showing as #11, the first listing on page two.

Granted, I doubt there are many people who just search for someone\’s first name to locate an individual (hey, does anyone know where I can find John?), but it is interesting just the same.

So who are the Joel\’s that I keep company with?

Joel Spolsky, the creator of JoelonSoftware.com has maintained the #1 spot for as long as I can remember.

Joel Osteen, the flamboyant so-called preacher of that Houston megachurch is in the #2 spot. (As an aside, my spidey senses tingle when I see or hear that guy. Something is not quite right…)

Joel Coen, the film director of Raising Arizona fame.

Billy Joel. Hey, Joel is NOT his first name. How did he get in there? Besides, the guy hasn\’t written a great song in twenty years. Not fair.

And then there is Joel Selmeier, the owner of Joel.com.

Joel is a nice guy who I have corresponded with a number of times. He is using the domain as a personal page. I told him if anyone deserved the domain Joel.com it was me. He said he would keep me in mind should he ever decide to part with the site. Yeah, and pigs may fly.

An image search of Google with my name in quotes turns up over 14,000 results! Photos of me with and without my goatee. Pictures of me with other people. Images of my products. Many duplicates of my books. I didn\’t know I had that many images out there.

Also interesting is to see what people search for in relation to my name. When you type in \”Joel Comm\” on Google, here are some of the suggested searches you will see.

It appears most people know exactly what they are looking for. It\’s not a surprise to see folks searching for my books, products, and of course, ifart.

So there you have it. Just some random thoughts about my name.

I\’m going to keep trying to get higher up on the search engine results with the name \”Joel\”. If you\’d like to link to my blog, you might consider using only the keyword Joel to do it! That would help me in my quest. :-)