Swedish couple names baby boy "Google"

October 21, 2005

A Swedish Lebanese couple, Walid Elias and Carol Kai, has chosen to name their first born son Google, after the well-known search engine.

The Swedish tax authority, which normally frowns on unusal names, apparently had no objections.

The father, Walid Elias Kai, says he's a "great fan" of the search engine and wanted to honor the service by naming his son after it. But Mr. Kai says he and his wife also chose the name because of the similar word googol. "[Googol] means 1 followed by 100 zeroes," stated Mr. Kai, "and I want my son to have lots of friends – I want him to be social, so the name also symbolises this."

Upon hearing the news, authors of the Google weblog wrote, "We wish him long life and good health, and hope his schoolmates aren't too hard on him."

Google Kai already has his own website at http://www.google-kai.com/