It's a weird time to be named Alice Huang. Just ask these women.

• The Nvidia scandal thrust former Megaspeed executive Alice Huang into the spotlight.
• Other women also named Alice Huang are feeling the impact.
• One Huang said posting about her name twin on LinkedIn led to job opportunities.

When Nvidia's Jensen Huang became embroiled in a scandal involving a woman named Alice Huang, an Austin job seeker with the same name saw an opening.

She changed her LinkedIn headline to "NOT A SPY" and posted that, unlike the other Alice Huang, who US intelligence officials reportedly believe was passing information to Beijing, her most dangerous secret was how many Chrome tabs she had open.

The joke took off. The post not only drew more than 800,000 impressions but also led to a handful of job solicitations via private messages, as viewed by Business Insider. One said they were looking for a chief of staff. Another said they were "connecting for the name" but saw opportunities to work together.

Huang, 41, happens to be looking for a chief of staff or operations role and is taking the messages seriously. "If they like my sense of humor, I know they're the right kind of people for me," she said.

Her last name is widespread across the US. In the 2020 Census, Huang was the 314th most common surname, with 98,330 Huangs covering the country. Case in point: Both Jensen and Alice in the Nvidia scandal share the same last name, though they are not related.

Alice is also a popular name, ranking as the 249th most common first name in the 2020 Census. There are at least dozens of Alice Huangs across the country. A LinkedIn search shows professionals with the name working in healthcare, nonprofits, and banking.

Now, all these women are tied together by a scandal. Their name twin has been barred from re-entry into Singapore, and Attorney General Todd Blanche said the government is investigating but has yet to conclude whether she is a spy. China has repeatedly denied those claims.

Another Alice Huang, this one age 33 from the Bay Area, said she'd already picked out her Halloween costume for next year. She'd be the Megaspeed exec, her husband would be a GPU, and her 1-year-old daughter would be a leather-jacketed Jensen.

"It's just in my mind," she said. "I'm going to get started tonight."

The Alice Huang branding play

Alice Huang's private Pilates class began with a joke. "Oh, you've been in the news!" one of the Redondo Beach-based instructor's longtime clients said to her. They laughed about it, commiserated about the Nvidia CEO's downfall, and then got on with the class.

So, the 51-year-old decided to post about it on Instagram. She knows that Pilates fosters a stronger mind-body connection and helps people feel calmer. Maybe the Nvidia scandal wouldn't have happened if its founder did more Pilates, she reasoned.

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A post shared by Alice Huang (@alice.loves.pilates)

A small connection to a newsmaking scandal — even just a name in common — can be big for personal branding. A 24-year-old from Singapore, also named Jensen Huang, told Business Insider that posting about the scandal drove traffic to his startup's website and converted subscribers.

The Austin-based Huang said that, after posting on LinkedIn, her phone began buzzing incessantly. She asked ChatGPT to do the math; it estimated she got 300 connection requests an hour. "I was shocked to see it blow up like that," she said.

As for the Huang in the Bay Area, she used the scandal to help fundraise. Huang is involved in Cornell's Bay Area alumni network, and posted on LinkedIn to help raise money for local nonprofits. She opened the post with: "It's Alice Huang here. No, not that one."

One alum sent an Amazon package to her house as part of the fundraising drive. It included a gift note: "Stay away from Jensen!"

The friends, family, and old coworkers reaching out

When not raising money, the Bay Area Huang works in the semiconductor industry. The Nvidia scandal hit close to home, she said, and it's all her colleagues can talk about — so, they approach her cubicle and make jokes about it.

"They're engineers," she said. "People are very shy. They're just like: 'We talked about you. Did you know?'"

Once your name is in the news, suddenly everyone wants to talk to you. The Texas-based Huang had people from her life in Australia, where she lived more than 10 years ago, reach out to her.

Friends and family keep telling the SoCal-based Huang about her name twin. An old friend from London reached out, and colleagues she hadn't seen in years started texting her. "It's a little bit chaotic," she said.

She's not too worried about confusion between the Huangs. Alice Huang is a popular Taiwanese name, she said, and her parents named her after one of the country's mountains.

"I don't know if, next time at the airport, I'm going to be stopped," Huang said. "But there are many, many, many Alice Huangs in the country and the world, so hopefully that won't be an issue."