All in the name...

I recently caught the re-braodcast of the 48 Hours piece on Searching for Angela Shelton.Fascinating on a few fronts:

First of all, Angela Shelton and her story of surviving abuse and confronting it. The fact that 50% of the Angela Sheltons she found around the country had been abused or attacked in some way. So powerful, so moving (My name is Aprille, and I'm a sap. This was one of many shows that made me cry). To see the impact the filmmaker had on the other Angelas interviewed in getting them to tell their stories - some for the first time. I may try to arrange for a screening at work or somewhere - it looks important.

The researcher in me also found it highly interesting that Angela Shelton decided to sample the country by contacting as many people with the same name as possible. It certainly did provide a cross-section of race, background, lifestlye, religion, etc. An interesting perspective.

Of course, you have to have a name that will generate hits. Occasionally, we hear stories of name mixups. Jenny's name was on the news, but it wasn't her. Sonny says he found another CW Roelle (not from the direct line of which he is the 4th) online, but I couldn't find him when I Googled. My boyfriend (J) says there's a high school basketball star with his name.

In the Google realm, at least, Danny and I have a first and last combination that comes up with no hits other than our own.
So I searched just on my first name, which is unique enough that I was actually surprised to get some hits. Another cross-section, although leaning towards higher education levels - though that could be because I did an online search:

• A writer/ computer tech
• A sculptor
• A NASA engineer
• A guitarist who was in a high shool band in '99
• A 2004 Ms Fitness Competitor/ speech pathologist
• A parenting teacher/ social worker
• A few other high schoolers
• Someone with a ferret page?

I was a bit disturbed to find a really ugly jacket bearing my name and a site where you can morph your pics to see what you'd look like with cosmetic surgery.

In the process, I discovered that Aprille is not only the Old English spelling of the month, but that it is also supposed to mean "forthcoming". Sounds like a good name to me - lots of potential.