According to data recently released by the directory service Whitepages and cited by The Hollywood Reporter, there are currently five people in the U.S. with the unfortunate name Freddy Krueger. And those are the Freddy Kruegers whose phone numbers are listed, not yet driven to change their names by teenagers calling them and asking,“is your refrigerator running, bitch?”
This information comes from Whitepages’ annual list of the numbers of U.S. residents who share their names with horror movie characters, writers, and directors. (Although lumping them together seems a bit unfair, since naming your kid after a psychopathic mass murderer and naming your kid after a film director are hardly the same thing.) Unsurprisingly, the relatively common Michael Myers tops the list, while only one person shares a moniker with “Omen kid” Damien Thorn. Here’s the complete list:
1. Michael Myers (Halloween): 4,282; 333 in OH
2. Stephen King (Author): 2,068; 168 in TX
3. Norman Bates (Psycho): 96; 9 in TX
4. Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th): 30; 4 each in PA, CA, NY
5. Annie Wilkes (Misery): 25; 10 in GA
6. Jack Torrance (The Shining): 10; 2 in CA
7. Wes Craven (Director): 7; 2 in NC
8. Alfred Hitchcock (Director): 7; 2 each in CA and MD
9. Max Cady (Cape Fear): 6; 3 in FL
10. Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street): 5; 2 in WA
11. Donnie Darko (Donnie Darko): 4; 3 in PA
12. Samara Morgan (The Ring): 2; 1 each in TX and ND
13. Damien Thorn (The Omen): 1 in CA
The ages of the people represented on the list are unknown, but hopefully they were all born before the movies featuring their onscreen namesakes were released, because otherwise their parents are assholes. The status of the real-life Freddy Krueger’s application to work as a school janitor is also unknown.