I share a name with a very famous professional athlete. I don't even think about it usually but as soon as I have to give my name to someone I can pretty much count on some remark about the athlete by the same name.
I've dealt with this in many ways over the years but my most recent method is to pretend to have never heard of that famous person by the same name. That makes the conversation awkward and they usually move on.
Also, if you meet someone who shares a name with a celebrity, keep these things in mind:
- There is nothing you can say about it that is funny or clever. We have heard it all before. Just don't.
- If you do have something to say about it that is truly original and absolutely hilarious, see the previous rule.
I have two thirds of a name shared with a famous actress. It used to bug me that people would call it out all the time, and for a short period of time I even considered going by my middle name instead of my first name. Around the time I got married and people shifted the third part of the actress's name to a verb I started to warm up to it, and nowadays I mostly consider it a bit of built-in name recognition and mnemonic for people remembering my name.