There is an amusing story in today’s NYTimes about people who search online for others of the same name. Now, you would think that my name isn’t that common, but as I own the strom.com domain, I have found many other David Stroms over the years since I first set up my domain back in the pre-Al Gore-days when domains were free.
I have actually met one of my namesakes, who works in IT for Columbia’s Earth Science labs. He came to my book signing and there was some initial repartee that was pretty funny. And no, we don’t look anything alike. But I still freak out when I get an email from him, thinking someone has hacked my account.
There is a DS who is a University of Oregon Physics professor. If you Google my name, the most prolific one is a guy in Minnesota who runs his own political foundation and gets quoted and picked up almost as much as I do. Another one was a student at Urban Champaign University but I have lost touch with him.
Strom is a German word and often a suffix for many Scandinavian names so it isn’t surprising that I have run into one guy with my name from Sweden. When I first started at PC Week in the mid 1980s, I got a call from the Swedish embassy asking me to help write about a Swedish IT company. When I asked the caller why me, he had a little uncomfortable moment and he realized that I wasn’t Swedish. (My father’s family is from Lithuania.)
I am posting this, and will put up pictures of any DS’s that want to send me their pictures, and if they have Web sites, I am happy to link to their’s.
David, I hate to impose. I’ve had you on my blogg roll for some time, but I always only visit to read your tips, etc. However, I need your help. What has happend to the ability to edit blog rolls in WordPress since the new update. I can’t find it anywhere.
Thanks, CordieB.
I had to chime in on this – there are several Michael Kriegers that I’ve come across over the years – one is an LA folk singer (yes, I bought one of his CDs), another is an attorney, also based in LA.
After returning to a trip to Moscow in 1990 where I was working at the first computer trade show there, I placed a call to Peter Norton to let him know how popular Norton Commander was over there – although I’m sure there weren’t many licenses actually sold there at the time. When I told the receptionist (rember those?) my name, she just said “Peter’s busy Michael, he’ll call you right back” and hung up without taking my number, which in the days before caller ID seemed pretty weird. I later discovered that Norton’s attorney was also named Michael Krieger, the admin thought I was him.
We did eventually contact each other, and years later he wrote for CIO Insight, a publication that I had also written for. Small world, small world indeed.
“Strom” is *Norwegian*, my great-grandfather Andrew Jensen Strom came to the US from the Tromso area with my grandfather & his brother, and my son is named for him. As I recall, “Strom” means “stream” or “river”, and maybe something to do with electricity, since electricity “flows”. The Swedish may have picked it up from the Norwegians, of course. 😉
David Strom
(who works for Columbia University)