Do you know Dave Gorman?

“Which one?” you might ask.  It’d be a pertinent question.

The Dave Gorman to whom we refer is a British comedian, known for his quirky humor and carefully-sculpted facial hair. But there are many more Dave Gormans.

No-one knows this better than Dave himself.

Think connections for a moment.

Have you ever thought about how our names connect us?

Have you ever wondered about the people with whom you share a name?

How many are there?

Whereabouts do they live?  What jobs do they do?

Eleven years have passed since Dave Gorman asked himself all those questions and in the intervening period he has met namesakes all over the world, making countless connections along the way.

His quest became a book – inspired, like some of our other favourite reads, by a drunken conversation that in turn led to an argument, a bet and an obsession.

It also became, one suspects, the bane of his life.

From his home in London, Dave Gorman travelled to Scotland to meet his first otherDave Gorman.

The Dave Gorman in question, a soccer coach, had a son.

His name? Dave Gorman.

Other Dave Gormans followed, and, as word began to spread,  Dave – the first one, you understand – travelled to Norway, Italy, New York and France, all in order to meet people connected by nothing else but their names.

His credit card was soon unable to fund his quest any longer, so Dave Gorman penned a stage show, called Are you Dave Gorman? 

It became a runaway success, particularly popular with people of a certain name.

You guessed it. Dave Gorman.

To cut a long story short, Dave fulfilled his ambition and won the bet – finding and meeting 54 Dave Gormans, one for each playing card in a regular deck – and later, at a special Dave Gorman party, 73 Dave Gormans gathered in London to celebrate an ordinary name and an extraordinary connection.

These days, to his chagrin, Dave – the comedian Dave, that is –

receives countless emails from people all over the world telling him about Dave Gormans he has yet to meet.

After 11 years of this, it’s becoming a little tiresome.

This is an extreme example, but still, it’s one that celebrates connection and demonstrates that, from all walks of life, from all sections of society, people are tied together, be it by name or other means.

Have you ever met a namesake?

With the advent of Facebook and other social networking websites, researching these things is much easier than it was in 2000, when Mark Zuckerberg was still in High School, Facebook was no more than a dream and finding people who shared your name involved tip-offs, telephone directories and much money, time and effort.

In researching this subject we discovered a website called howmanyofme.com –

a fascinating resource dedicated to name-based connections –

that we’re certain will appeal to you.

Did you realise, for example, that from a population of just over 312,000,000, there are, in the United States, more than 45,000 John Smiths.

Perhaps you’re one of them.

There are 981 James Bonds in America, 439 George Bushs and 103 Harry Potters!

For Dave’s sake, we can report that there are 10 Stateside Dave Gormans, some of whom we suspect he knows already.

Miquette Bishop?

We’re pleased to report that there’s just the one, 100% original, 100% unique, just like our OMs.

That’s how we like it, of course,

although we appreciate it wouldn’t make for the most interesting of books.

With that in mind, it’s perhaps as well that here in Saunderstown,

we’re reliant on OMs,

not names, to make our connections.

www.ilovemyOM.com

www.Twitter.com/ombymiquette