How to make an email of my name?

I like to keep things simple in life. All I want is a email of my name. I’ve tried to finding one at Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo and others… but in vain. My name is also not that common but it’s not available. What can you advice?Chase Brewer

I feel you man. However, there is little one can do. Popular email services that have been around for sometime have hundreds of millions of subscribers and the chances of making an email address of your name is virtually zero. Even on a newly launched service, getting a good username proves difficult.

And I really like your thought process – keeping things simple in life. I too believe in the same and that is why I think the best email address is one which identifies the owner by name. Additionally, it looks sharp and helps others remember your address. I mean, how can people expect others to recall a complicated email address that has digits or ones in which ‘s’ is replaced with ‘z’?

So what can you do to make an email address of your name? Here are a few tips.

Contact the present owner

Let us start with the free email services that you mentioned. Contact the present owner and propose to buy the email address. However, it would be wishful thinking if we assume our requests would be even considered. After all, they too have that email address for the same reason – it has their name. But there is no harm in trying, right?

Get a domain name of your name

The other option is to get a domain name of your name and make an email address on that. This is actually quite easy and offers the advantage of creating more than one email address. Let me explain.

The email address consist of two parts – the username and the machine name (domain name). For instance, in case of Gmail, the address may look like:

On popular email services, the domain part is always “fixed” – you can’t change it. Certain services, like Yahoo!, may offer alternatives to the standard yahoo.com and that’s about it! Thus, the only part that you can choose is the username. And, as I mentioned before, finding one of your name is not easy on popular web services.

Now, with an email address on your own domain name, you can choose all three parts – the username, the domain name AND the domain name extension. My personal email address is:

So the first thing you should do is to search the dot-com domain name of your name. This, again, may also not be available. You see, the dot-com is the most popular extension and if you have a common name chances are it would already be taken. However, in this case, the present owner can probably be persuaded to part with it (by moolah, obviously). I’ve known many people who own domain names of their names and don’t use them, so there is a faint ray of hope.

But why get stuck on .com when there are tens of other great domain name extensions that you can use – .name, .me, .guru, .email. And these are in addition to .org, .net… the list goes on. In fact, certain country code TLDs may be apt for you if they gel well with your profession – .dj, .fm, .am, .tv…

Check out www.GoDaddy.com (presently the world’s largest domain name registrar) or 1&1 E-Mail. These two companies sell domain names at really low prices. And they also offer special plans for people like you looking for a personalised email address.

The cost of a domain name with an email address of your name would be about $20 for a year. This, as you can understand, is a small price to pay for something you really owning and will like use with relish. In addition to personalisation, you can decide the amount of storage space for the email address. And the best part – you can create more than one email address on the domain name.

My personal experience – making an email address of my name

I own the .com domain name of my name. I registered it more than a decade back. It was quite a serendipitous find because it wasn’t available when I had first checked. Anyway, once I had the domain name, I set about making my personal email address which I still use. You should see how people react when I tell them that.

So yes, in a way, an email address of with your name is like a vanity plate that boosts your ego, if you know what I mean. It is also very easy to recall. Read the advantages of having an email address of your name to really get convinced!