A Note to “Bob” at “Bob.com”

by Jay Thompson on April 14, 2008

Someone named “Bob” (curiously with an email address of bob@bob.com, which of course bounced as undeliverable) just sent me this from the blog contact form:

FYI your last post of sex offenders……search your name in public data base and your name comes up with numberous criminal records under Jay Thompson

JAY ELLIOTT THOMPSON
M-0751-CR-2007042936

JAY GRANT THOMPSON
S-0700-CR-1996001182

JAY J THOMPSON
M-1041-CR-86036639

JAY JEFF THOMPSON
M-1041-CR-93044552

You need to clean up your act. (my emphasis)

“Bob” -

Let’s be real. How many “Jay Thompson’s” do you think exist out there? I don’t know the exact number, but it’s a whole lot. “Jay” is a pretty common name, and “Thompson” is a very common surname. For the record, my legal first name is James, which makes it even more common.

How common? Well, suffice it to say that there is a James/Jay Thompson on the Federal terrorist watch list. Trust me, I deal with it every time I fly. Yet they still let me on planes.

There are enough bankrupt Jay / James Thompson’s out there to make life difficult every time I apply for a mortgage or credit card.

According to this source, Thompson is the 17^th most common surname in the US, and James is the most common male name. According to this site, around 672,500 people in the US have a last name of Thompson. Among first names only, 144,550 have the first name Jay and 4,064,550 have the first name James. Now I don’t know how many are named James or Jay Thompson, but I feel pretty safe saying it is “a big ol’ pile”.

I suspect there are tens of thousands of people named Jay / James Thompson out there. (Incidentally, none of those you listed are me. Not even close). And yes, some of those Jay Thompson’s are not good folk.

I don’t know whether to laugh or be afraid that you took the time to do a public record search on my name. If you are so inclined, please repeat the search using the name James Graham Thompson, Jr. While I can’t promise you that nothing will come up, I can assure you that this James Graham Thompson, Jr won’t.

I’ve been fingerprinted multiple times (not for those reasons people! For employment and licensing purposes – real estate sales, broker and substitute teacher), and passed numerous employment background checks. If any client is concerned that I might be some felon, terrorist or sex offender, I’ll be happy to provide evidence otherwise.

So, Bob, I really don’t feel compelled — in the least — to “clean up my act”.

But thanks for caring.

PS: I’m not complaining about my common name. It’s my Dad’s name, and my son’s name, and it means a lot to me to be named after my Dad and have my son named for both of us.

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Jon the Real Estate

That is pretty funny, although a bit scary. It probably stinks having people like 'bob' contact you, and I'm sure you don't like dealing with name similarities.

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John Wake

Factoid Alert!

Thompson was the 22nd most common name among home buyers in Maricopa County in 2007. 155 homes were bought by people with the surname Thompson.

northern indiana rea

What exactly was Bob's point? Was he trying to sell a service of some kind? That is just too bizarre to be sending an email to someone with such a generic name that they are on a sex offender list.

TheRECoach

Too fricken funny Jay! I have to side on the "I'm a little afraid" when this "BOB" took sooo much time to do this, but I appreciate your humorous spin on a serious situation. Your reputation is impeccable sir, your Avatar on the other hand.....eh!

Be Good

The Coach

Jay - The Phoenix Re

Beats me Nick. The post he was referring to was just a sort of silly/fun search terms post. Hard to see in there what could be offensive.

But you never know what might offend someone. I certainly didn't intend to offend anyone.

It's bothersome to think that someone out there might associate my name with a criminal, but it comes with having a common name, been dealing with it all my life.

And yes, I have several things in place to "watch" what people say on-line about "Jay Thompson". But it's difficult due to the shear volume of people having that name.

There's a professional surfer in Australia named Jay Thompson. We exchanged emails once. He wasn't interested in exchanging jobs. ;)

Nick Bostic

Do you think maybe "Bob" took a personal offense to your article? I'm assuming you track your name anyway, so you probably knew all of this before even writing your article. Some people have too much free time.