I have (first initial)(mid initial)(last name) at gmail. Same as my HN id. And a very common last name! 16 months into my first job out of University I got a call from a headhunter intended for the other Chris Miller sitting 2 cubicles away from me. At my second and fourth jobs there were also other Chris Millers. And from my list of examples, most all have the same last name.
4 days into university, the first time I logged in to the email account, I had several messages waiting for me, all intended for the same person, the best of which was:
"Hi X. The £80 million for the new biomedical building is approved, please make the transfer ASAP."
It turned out I had the same unusual name as the most senior financial officer.
My last name is pretty uncommon, but there are at least a thousand of us or so in the US.
I probably get a dozen emails a month to people who are not me (not counting all the ones that end up in the spam folder after I'm on a damn list).
Susan. Stephen. Another Sam. So many damn S. Lastnames around.
On occasion I've tracked the people down. I've forwarded their emails if they seem important. And whenever I ask that they be more careful and memorize their own email address, they get defensive and tell me someone else made a mistake.
Buddy, this email was was an automated response from a computer
after you signed up for something. No, it did not just randomly decide to send to my @gmail instead of your actual @yahoo address. YOU just don't know your own email.
Enough people clearly do -- they think that all email addresses end in @gmail.com, even if they check their email at yahoo.com. Because we have an email monoculture.