One of the first things a person receives is his name. It’s a good old gift – cheap and portable, and nobody’s going to come and ask for it back. If you don’t like it, you can always change it anyway but I can’t think of anyone who’s gone down this route off the top of my head. I can’t say in all my travels, I ever met anyone with the same name, which makes me fairly confident to step forward when it’s read out – I suspect that most of you are pretty much the same unless you’re a John Smith in which you may well come across your name sake. All this changed with the appearance of the internet. Come on admit it, who hasn’t dialled up their name into Google to see what comes up. For me the internet abounds with Sandy Cowans – here are just a few of those I found. It wasn’t a particularly exhaustive search and I’m sure there are several times as many Sandy Cowans again that don’t have a mention on the machine at all.
Sandy Cowan is a legal secretary at Gornbein Smith Peskin-Shepherd, a fellow of the National Speleological Society, and a councillor for the city of Kawarth Lakes. Sandy Cowan is the president of the Burlington Youth Soccer team – I hope you’ve got your gopher problem under control now Sandy (100 gophers on their footy pitch and $35 a head to get rid of them). If you’re looking for a used car in Glasgow, Kentucky then Ronnie and Sandy Cowan are the people to sell you one. Sandy Cowan (Kiwi chick (her words not mine)) enjoyed a meal at the Cork and Bottle in Cranbourne Street in London – “The hokey pokey ice cream was even better than the Tip Top brand at home in NZ”. Sandy Cowan was a production assistant on the 1987 classic Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night as well as an actress in the 1999 short the Inquisition. I’ve no idea what Sandy Cowan from Roanoke or Toronto do.
Dr Sandy Cowan knows his oats!
Congratulations must go out to Sandy Cowan, dedicated member of the Allen Temple Presbyterian Churchon reaching the grand old age of 100. My apologies for being late here as this happened in 1999 and Mr Cowan is no longer with us.
Indeed with so many Sandy Cowans wandering about the net you’d have expected at least one or two to have made it to the top of the pack and I was delighted to discover that Sandy Cowan was a member of the Winnipeg Shamrocks who represented Canada at Lacrosse in the 1904 Olympic game and picked up a gold medal for his trouble – they were the only non-winter sports team to win gold in Manitoba’s history. Closer to home 1904 was also a good year for Sandy Cowan, when as part of the Hamilton Academicals line up against Clyde they won 3-0 to ensure them of the Second Division League title in front of a 3000 crowd. As it happens, 1904 is the year in which my grandfather was born, who, like his grandfather before him, was also Sandy Cowan.
So it seems that this is a world full of Sandy Cowans, all successfully managing to avoid each other. If you’re one of the Sandys mentioned here, I hope you don’t mind – you could drop me a line and say hello.
Sandy's witterings 
One of my first discoveries of this nature was the person who owns the domain kimayres.com. It turns out she\’s a female bodybuilder – about as far physically removed as you can get from me – illustrating the yin-yang balance of the universe. I\’m connected to her on Facebook these days.
That\’s pretty near the other end of the spectrum from yourself Kim.
Now if you had a name like say Marion, then I think the only solution would be to change it and become the roughest toughest cowboy in town but if you only have a mildly crossgender name (like ourselves) then you can get away with growing a beard and playing a manly tune on the mandolin (I mean it\’s not called a ladyolin is it).
Thanks for dropping in again
Sandy