Under dictatorships like the Soviet Union's, and paternalist regimes such as France's, new parents had to choose from a directory of approved forenames. The power of Google is more subtle, and the effect is to increase diversity, rather than diminish it. The Wall Street Journal finds a mother, herself a victim of a common surname, who named her son to show up high in Google. Abigail Wilson, one of many, ran possible names against the search engine, and picked Kohler, an old family name, because it was rarely paired with Wilson. She missed a trick: if the Wilsons had set up a domain for their child, it could be drawing links, and building up Google juice, like investment in a college fund, right now.

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