The Quest to be the Most Interesting Derek

If you’re just joining me from The Unicorner, welcome! I’m glad that you trust me enough to join your inbox. If you have no idea what the Unicorner is, check them out! I started writing for them recently and published my first piece with them.

For an embarrassing amount of time, I thought I could’ve been named Airport Wong. Presumably, as a running joke, my parents told me they didn’t have a name for me when I was born. As they rushed to the hospital, they passed by San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and thought “We could call him Airport”. Of course, being a child I took it at face value, believing that I would be named Airport. So throughout my childhood and occasionally now, I think of my name and shudder at the thought, that I’d be called Airport Wong.

1 in 8 Billion (and counting)

Names are powerful. They’re an inescapable part of our identity. From birth, we are assigned a name and suddenly one of the biggest parts of our lives has already been decided for us. There are so many external influences to a name that we take for granted.

Names often have meaning. In Genesis, Jacob in Hebrew means deceiver. Although he’s not inherently evil, he goes through much of his life lying and tricking people into getting what he wants. He certainly lives up to the name. But there are so many other names that attach a connotation to it.

When was the last time you met someone named Karen? What did you think when they introduced themselves? Even if they’re sweet and kind, you have the thought in the back of your head “Should I make a manager joke?” These associations come from societal norms and expectations that we have no control over.

I come across a lot of names that make me pause and think “What would it be like to be them?” What’s it like to grow up with a name like Princess, Diamond, or X Æ A-12 Musk? How about Alexa? These names all have nuanced implications deeply intertwined. And that’s before we get to last names.

Last names define our background. Meeting someone with the last name Obama, Kennedy or Rockefeller instantly associates one with power. For example, Malia and Sasha Obama will forever be dwarfed by their last name. But there are cultural undertones that also influence our last names.

For example, Nguyen is the most popular Vietnamese last name. At my cousin’s graduation, there was a running joke about how many people walked across the stage with the last name Nguyen.[2] If you Google “most popular insert nationality here last names” you’d be sure to find some interesting results. My last name, Wong, is the most popular Chinese last name. I’ve even met a few people named Derek Wong.

Once you are of legal age, you can change your name.[3] Many people go by a different name than what was given to them at birth. Between Snoop Dog (Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr.) Bruno Mars (Peter Gene Hernandez) to Muhammad Ali (Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.), people change their names all the time.

Snoop Dog and Bruno Mars both use their stage names as a reference to a childhood nickname. Calvin’s mother used to call him Snoopy because he looked like the Peanuts character.[4] Peter’s dad called him Bruno after Bruno Sammartino, who was this big, fat wrestler. He picked up Mars after so many girls told him that “he was out of this world”.

Cassius Clay’s name change came from a more significant identity switch. When switching to the Nation of Islam, Clay had to take on a new name to shed his “slave name”. Originally he had taken on Cassius X, following in the footsteps of Malcolm X. However he went a step further to take on the formal name of Muhammed Ali. Imagine how he would’ve reacted to seeing a childhood friend call him Cassius.

The final boss of names is getting to the single name reference. People like Lebron, Oprah, and Beyonce need no full name. These are the truly famous people, the people who can’t walk around in broad daylight. Getting to this level of fame is mostly unachievable, especially as a first name.

As a broad blueprint, a single name reference requires two ingredients. You have to have a unique name, while also adding something significant to the world. There’s no most famous “Chris” for the simple fact that there are too many people named Chris.[5]

The Competition

Which brings me to my quest. Becoming the most interesting Derek. The most famous Derek, according to playback.fm is Derek Jeter. During his career, he was a 5x World Series Champion, a 14x All-Star, and won multiple other awards, such as being a 5x Golden Glove winner. As a hall-of-fame baseball player for the Yankees, he’s become a mogul for Derek’s around the world. But I would hardly put him as the most interesting.

The two Derek’s that are in battle are Derek Sivers and Derek Thompson. Intellectually stimulating, Derek Thompson is a journalist at The Atlantic. But that title underserves him. Thompson is a thought leader in all aspects of life. If you’ve ever heard the term “Hygiene Theater” that was coined by one of his pieces.

There is no topic that he doesn’t dive deep in, from macro-economic policy to mask mandates to ice cream conspiracies. As a former actor, his writing is vivid, clear, and approachable. His whimsical curiosity for finding the truth and exploring topics that he finds interesting makes it all the more engaging for anyone as a reader. He writes in a musical way, which makes reading his writing not only easy but memorable. He’s written a book called Hit Makers and is currently working on a book about abundance with Ezra Klein. He’s also a new dad (congrats Derek!)

Derek Sivers, best known for selling CD Baby for $22 million, has more stories than a novel. A reluctant entrepreneur, he’s turned his life into finding something interesting to him and diving deep into it.

He initially started CD Baby in 1997 as a way to sell his band’s CDs. But as all great entrepreneurs started, friends started to hear that they could use his website to sell their CDs. As the business grew and grew, Sivers eventually partnered with Apple to bring CDs to iTunes.[6]

Since then, he’s written multiple books, famously responds to every email, and is currently evangelizing people to be web-independent. He doesn’t work for money, travels the world being a dad, and has set up a charity for music education. It’s a lot harder to put a label on Sivers as he’s constantly working on something new.

So What Now?

So where does this leave me? No clue. It feels hard to wrap my identity up because I have no idea where to begin. Since graduating college, it’s been clear that identity is so much more than a job or career. Which is why I think it sucks to ask kids “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The truth is, no one knows what they want to be. The more I talk to people, the truer that becomes.

I started writing because writers are the most interesting people in the world. They’ve taken their thoughts and put them on paper for me to read and understand. How cool is that? Since I started to write, I’ve written about doing the dishes, my fight against taking PTO, and the most unlikely gold medal winner of all time. I love exploring unsexy ideas. Unsexy ideas are often misunderstood. In a world filled with hype, finding the person who’s misunderstood can be a gold mine.

I’m just one of many Dereks that exist out in the world. A simple Google search for the name Derek Wong pops up a wedding photographer in Hawaii, a dentist, and so many others.[7] I’m sure you’ve Googled yourself. Maybe you’ve even met someone with the same name as you. If you have, you can share an identity that few others can.

Part of life is being able to make a name for yourself. But it’s so much more than just making money. It’s crafting an identity, living up to it, and striving to be the best that you can be.[8] You may share a name with others, but your life and story are unique.[9] That’s something that can never be taken, no matter what happens.

Fun Stuff

Footnotes

[1] Dale Carnegie was born Dale Carnagay. He changed his name after publishing his first book so that people would associate him with Andrew Carnegie.

[2] There were at least eight people with the last name Nguyen. The faculty weren’t too pleased with the audience counting the number of Nguyen’s crossing the stage.

[3] My uncle’s last name is Vong. How did that happen? Well, when he immigrated here from Hong Kong, an immigration officer mistook the “W” for a “V”. Since then, his last name has been Vong. Crazy how that happens huh?

[4] Can you imagine if Snoop Dog looked like another cartoon character?

[5] In the MCU alone there are three Chris’s. Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, and Chris Pratt. You can’t even be the most famous Chris in a movie series…

[6] Sivers has talked about how miserable it was to do business with Apple. I don’t envy being there.

[7] There are a lot of Derek Wongs who have a Ph.D. or Doctorate… I hope my mom doesn’t hear about them.

[8] Someone who’s done this well? Michael B. Jordan. He was born a year before Michael Jordan was drafted into the NBA. No one could’ve predicted that this little boy would be soon overshadowed by the greatest basketball player of all time. But he’s made it as an actor.

[9] If you meet me and call me Airport, you’re a real one.