I am the only one with my name. Strange thing: A guy with my exact name, two years younger, died in Vegas, in a trench collapse. I had told many old friends that I was considering moving to Vegas. People were seeing his obit, and calling me to make sure I was OK. Even more strange: His mother had the exact, very rare, first name as my father's second wife!
Yeah, did that a few times. I have a weird last name and yes, though it does appear via the search engines, most of the spellings are different but it still sounds the same. There’s even a town in Germany with my last name.
If I search for first and last name I just get myself. If I use just my last name I get listing of all relatives
Off & on throughout my life, I've looked for others with my last name, mostly in regional phone books. They have been few & far between. I only recall ever finding one person listed,and I have never encountered anyone outside of family with my surname. What's interesting is that there is now a WIKI page for my surname that lists (11) people, (6) of which were born in American. -3 were born in Pennsylvania, where my father's parents settled when they arrived from Germany and my father's immediate family lived. -1 was born in Indiana, the state in which 3 siblings and I were born. One was born at least 70 years before my grandparents landed here. One was born 14 years after my father. One was born to a Mennonite minister, a year before my eldest sister was born. One was born in 1964, 10 years after me and 4 years after my youngest sibling. I don't recognize any of them, but WIKI is scant on childhood details for them, save the minister's daughter who moved to Canada as a child. But we were never big on "family."
Funny, but there are those that live in Texas and Oklahoma that will use the first letter of their first name and the first letter of their middle or last name as their name. Like: BJ, DJ, MJ and others.