My googleganger started getting a lot of headlines the year
I graduated from college and moved to San Francisco to become a journalist,
causing much confusion among my acquaintances. I remember going back to my small,
Midwestern college to visit the Spring after I graduated. A boy with whom I had an
intense on-again, off-again tryst for years – and whom I desperately wanted
to impress with my new life as a reporter in San Francisco – had recently seen
my googleganger’s byline in the Times and had spread the word around campus
that I was writing about energy/business for the illustrious paper. In comparison, my
job at AsianWeek suddenly seemed downright provincial. Since most people don’t
know too many Neela Banerjees – they were convinced that it was me, (where in reality the name is akin to Kristin Smith in the Bengali Indian community.) By the
end of the weekend, I was so tired of disappointing people that I just brushed
off the adoration and said: “I don’t really want to talk about work,” and
parlayed the excitement into a way for people to buy me drinks at the local
bar.

Some eight years later, it still happens about once or twice
a month. I’ve changed my published name to my full name – Neelanjana Banerjee –
to avoid further confusion. Over the years, several people who have tried to
contact me at the other Neela’s NY Times email address have been redirected to
me, a friend met the other Neela in Russia, and my uncle saw her at a
conference on energy. I never made the leap to contact her, even though when I
was at an ethnic media convention in New York City in 2005 and ended up at the
Times building, I wondered if I should track her down. But then, it was that
great social networking tool called Facebook that brought us together, when she
contacted me with a lovely note last year.

Of course, before Angela Shelton, there was Grace Lee who searched out those who had her name and made a film about it. Over the years, I have thought a great deal about the fascination and feeling of finding someone with your same name. I think as Asian Americans, who often have such distinct and identifying names -- especially when growing up in the Midwest -- we develop a different relationship with our names, whether it is the desire to change our names to more anglicized versions (my older brother Rahul changed his name to Roy until he went to college) or the eternal struggle to have people pronounce our names correctly. I have to admit, I was pretty into being the only Neela Banerjee around and I felt a cyber-rivalry with my other -- but that has mellowed over the years and am proud to know that there are two of us out there working in the media.

So, I know all of you have found some interesting googlegangers ... who are they? Anyone surprising? Has anyone contacted them or had any cases of mistaken identity?