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Author Topic: Email Naming Convention for Personal Website  (Read 5658 times)

Attronarch

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Email Naming Convention for Personal Website
« on: July 23, 2016, 10:32 AM »
I've been contemplating a personal domain for some years now, but until now it wasn't justified by the volume of work I did. Since it did significantly increase this year, I finally bought it a week or two ago.

Besides learning WordPress by doing all kinds of silly mistakes, I got stuck on ridiculous, but important thing - how should I name my e-mail?

I do a lot of e-mailing, back-and-forth, and on different professional levels. Start-ups don't really care, but corporate clients do.

Did some research, and I definitely don't like naming it like:

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

I kind of liked:

[email protected] (favourite)
[email protected]
[email protected]

My domain is first letter of my name followed by my full surname and then .com.

I'd like to hear your experiences. What did you use, or encountered, that you've found professional and thought it sounds good?

wraith808

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Re: Email Naming Convention for Personal Website
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2016, 01:37 PM »
I don't think that there is a real naming convention.  It's an art when you're not doing it specifically in the known ways.  I have one at [email protected].  I have another where, with the new TLDs, I was able to make it something really cool.  I've had that [email protected] forever... and people get it, and can remember it.  But once I changed it to my new one, not only do they remember it, I get a reaction.  And by that, they remember me.

To show what I mean, let's say you were a consultant in c-sharp.  Why not register csharp.consulting (it is available) and do [email protected]?  You can do all sorts of things with all of the new TLDs.

Take a look at your last name?  Is it a descriptor?  A verb?  An adverb?  Make use of that to make your e-mail memorable.  What if your name was Richard Strange?  You could do all sorts of things with that.  Just need Strange to be available in the tld you want.  I know someone with the last name fake... and I was so jealous of the things you could do with that.  Until I realized mine made it just as open, and got a cool one.

I guess my point is, unless your domain name is already set, try something outside the norm in order to make it memorable.  Because I can tell you, I get a good reaction every time I tell people my e-mail.  And they remember it.

If you are stuck on your domain name, however, I'd suggest a form of alliteration, i.e. first letter of first name full surname at first letter of first name full surname .com  That would also make it memorable.

Shades

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Re: Email Naming Convention for Personal Website
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2016, 01:48 PM »
[email protected] - that is the most formal/professional, even though your domain has the name it has. Which is a good reason to not use your first/last name (or any combination thereof) in a domain name (that you plan to expose to the interwebz) in the first place.

Using your initials...while that might sound good to you, after all, you know and your direct family & friends know these. If you plan to use that account for professional communication, expect errors because your professional contact might know your name, but not your initials. Besides that, most people only have 2 or 3 initials, so those short names are easily guessable for spammers.

How many mail accounts are provided by your ISP (the hoster of your domain)? Even the cheaper ones in the Netherlands give you unlimited mail addresses. With my very reliable host (25 euro/year including taxes and domain renewal) I get a main domain name (.nl), 5 sub-domains, 75GB/month traffic, 5 MySQL databases and unlimited mail addresses on the main and sub domains. All their servers are Linux based and you are able to manage everything for your domain through a CPanel interface.

All I want to say is that it doesn't take that much effort for your ISP to provide you with lots of mail addresses at virtually no (storage/maintenance) cost to them. Especially for a personal domain where traffic will be low (it might seem impressive to you, for your hoster it will be just a drip in a bucket). 25 euro/year translates to about 3 USD/month. That shouldn't break the bank. Even in Croatia you should be able to get similar service for a similar fee.

Of course, you can register your domain and take care of hosting your website (including mail server) yourself. Something you should only consider if you have the know-how and/or need for that level of control. It is definitely not cheaper and maintaining your own mailserver is a time-sink that gives you a headache to boot. Because it is very easy to mess up, as most people don't get the concepts behind DNS and MX records (at least not the first time). However, when done right, you can have as many mail addresses as your hardware/budget allows...

mouser

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Re: Email Naming Convention for Personal Website
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2016, 02:15 PM »
I kind of liked:
[email protected] (favourite)
[email protected]
[email protected]

those all seem fine to me and professional enough.

Deozaan

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Re: Email Naming Convention for Personal Website
« Reply #4 on: July 23, 2016, 02:43 PM »
My domain is first letter of my name followed by my full surname and then .com.

Use your first name, backwards, minus the first letter. :D So if your name were Steven Thompson, your address would be [email protected] :P

Or if your first name happens to begin and end with the same letter, such as Kirk, then just do, (e.g.,) [email protected]

Jibz

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Re: Email Naming Convention for Personal Website
« Reply #5 on: July 23, 2016, 02:57 PM »
I've ended up using intials .. you get tired of spelling out long email addresses to people irl :-[.

Attronarch

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Re: Email Naming Convention for Personal Website
« Reply #6 on: July 23, 2016, 03:05 PM »
Thank you for sharing your ideas. Got some food for thought.

I guess my point is, unless your domain name is already set, try something outside the norm in order to make it memorable.  Because I can tell you, I get a good reaction every time I tell people my e-mail.  And they remember it.

If you are stuck on your domain name, however, I'd suggest a form of alliteration, i.e. first letter of first name full surname at first letter of first name full surname .com  That would also make it memorable.

While I understand the value of creative and unconventional e-mail addresses, I'm not really operating in industries where crazy e-mails are welcomed. Or maybe I am, but I am just too stuck up to experiment.

But I do like your alliteration proposal. It is not without its risks though - I imagine I could sound like a retarded parrot when giving out my e-mail verbally.

[email protected] - that is the most formal/professional, even though your domain has the name it has.

I agree, and that's how my corporate e-mail addressees looked like when I worked, at well, big corporates.

In this specific case I just feel that firstname.lastname would be too long and redundant when there is my first name initial and my full surname in the domain.

Which is a good reason to not use your first/last name (or any combination thereof) in a domain name (that you plan to expose to the interwebz) in the first place.

Using your initials...while that might sound good to you, after all, you know and your direct family & friends know these. If you plan to use that account for professional communication, expect errors because your professional contact might know your name, but not your initials. Besides that, most people only have 2 or 3 initials, so those short names are easily guessable for spammers.

While I understand security and privacy concerns, I am selling myself, and part of that is being easily available. I made my e-mail, Skype, and telephone numbers publicly available. I have to rely on anti-spam and filtering solutions. Hadn't had problems so far.

Contact forms are useless, and only hurt both sides interested in doing proper business together (unless it is corporate website). I made best deals and work with people who put out their contact available and easy to get. Actually, if I find it hard to find their e-mail and/or phone (and I'll always manage to find it somewhere) when I am looking for business partners it is a good signal that they aren't really interested in partnerships. Even if they say so (contact me via my contact form, yay).

How many mail accounts are provided by your ISP (the hoster of your domain)? Even the cheaper ones in the Netherlands give you unlimited mail addresses. With my very reliable host (25 euro/year including taxes and domain renewal) I get a main domain name (.nl), 5 sub-domains, 75GB/month traffic, 5 MySQL databases and unlimited mail addresses on the main and sub domains. All their servers are Linux based and you are able to manage everything for your domain through a CPanel interface.

All I want to say is that it doesn't take that much effort for your ISP to provide you with lots of mail addresses at virtually no (storage/maintenance) cost to them. Especially for a personal domain where traffic will be low (it might seem impressive to you, for your hoster it will be just a drip in a bucket). 25 euro/year translates to about 3 USD/month. That shouldn't break the bank. Even in Croatia you should be able to get similar service for a similar fee.

I have unlimited e-mail addresses and CPanel interface as well, but I don't understand the connection with the above? Are you suggesting that I get a corporate sounding domain, put it on my existing hosting plan, and slap [email protected]? Or were you just making a general comment?

I mean I can generate as many e-mail addresses as I want, but from my understanding I cannot change what is after @, only before.

I do plan to use that, so I will have other use-specific addressees like [email protected] and [email protected]

My domain is first letter of my name followed by my full surname and then .com.

Use your first name, backwards, minus the first letter. :D So if your name were Steven Thompson, your address would be [email protected] :P

Or if your first name happens to begin and end with the same letter, such as Kirk, then just do, (e.g.,) [email protected]

That sounds just about right. Gave it a try and got very Turkish sounding e-mail address. Since I am living and doing business in Norway that doesn't really help. :D

wraith808

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Re: Email Naming Convention for Personal Website
« Reply #7 on: July 23, 2016, 04:51 PM »
[email protected] - that is the most formal/professional, even though your domain has the name it has.

While common, that is not necessarily the most formal/professional, IME.  I've worked at fortune 500 companies and had it be [email protected].  I've also had it be firstinitial.lastname, firstname, firstname.lastname, firstinitialmiddleinitiallastname, and many other usages, and very large companies.  One of the ones that I had [email protected] was KPMG/BearingPoint.  My point is, I don't think there's an established, most formal, nor most professional standard.  Just what the company decides upon.

Ath

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Re: Email Naming Convention for Personal Website
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2016, 03:55 AM »
For a personal website, the form of firstname@initial+lastname.tld seems just right, having that personal informal taste.
For a formal, non-lastname company the [email protected] sounds professional but still personal, and [email protected] sounds professional but 'any collegue could replace me, so we won't get too personal' business attitude-like. To me, that is  :)