The Search for Optimal Distinctiveness
When I first met Adam Rifkin, I asked him to tell me about the most interesting contacts in his
network. “One of my favorite people,” he replied, “is Adam Rifkin.”
He wasn’t talking about himself. Adam Rifkin has developed a strong connection with another
man named Adam Rifkin—a Hollywood writer, director, producer, and actor who has been a major
contributor to films such as Detroit Rock City and He-Man. To avoid confusion, I’ll call him
Hollywood Adam, referring to his endearing doppelgänger as Panda Adam.
In 1992, when Hollywood Adam was just getting his start, Panda Adam moved to Los Angeles to
start his doctoral program at Caltech. People would accidentally call Panda Adam when they were
trying to reach Hollywood Adam. Panda Adam wanted to get in touch with Hollywood Adam to clear
up the confusion, so he put his phone number on the Internet. For three years, no one called. In 1996,
Hollywood Adam was in New York, and a friend showed him Panda Adam’s website. “I knew
nothing about the Internet, and I was impressed with what he’d created. I’d been mistaken for him a
number of times, so I called him right away.”
It was morning on the East Coast, and just after dawn on the West Coast. The piercing sound of a
ringing phone woke a sleeping Panda Adam.
Panda Adam (groggily): “Hello?”
Hollywood Adam: “Adam Rifkin, this is Adam Rifkin.”
Panda Adam: “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this call.”
On the surface, they didn’t have much in common. As far as they could tell, they weren’t related.
Panda grew up in New York; Hollywood grew up in Chicago. Panda was a software engineer;
Hollywood was in film. But when they met face-to-face, they felt an instant bond. “Hollywood Adam
is a fascinating character,” says Panda Adam. “His career in Hollywood and mine in Silicon Valley
have had more parallels than I would have guessed. Any time somebody asks me for a connection in
Hollywood, he’s usually the person I start with. Hollywood Adam has made countless introductions
to help people I know. Many people in Hollywood are narcissistic and self-centered, but Hollywood
Adam is as good-natured and kind as they come. We kind of have the same philosophy.”
“Panda Adam is a great guy,” says Hollywood Adam. “We have a similar sense of humor. We
help each other without keeping score. Neither one of us ever gives it any thought; we just do what’s
helpful.” Panda Adam was the person who introduced Hollywood Adam to Twitter. When Hollywood
Adam did a series for Showtime called Look, Panda Adam invited him up to northern California to
do screenings at YouTube and Twitter. Why did the two Adam Rifkins identify so strongly with each
other?
If you’re thinking it’s a name similarity effect, the data suggest that you’re right—at least partially.
Brett Pelham, a psychologist at the University at Buffalo, noticed that we seem to prefer people,
places, and things that remind us of ourselves. Because we associate our names so strongly with our
identities, we might be attracted to major decisions that remind us of our names. In an effort to
demonstrate this, Pelham and his colleagues have conducted a mind-boggling, controversial set of
studies.
Across five different studies, they found that people are unusually likely to end up living in places
that resemble their first names. In one study, Pelham’s team searched the forty biggest cities in the