It seems like everything on the internet is sold out these days. Whether it’s your favorite twitter account or even the domain name of your choice, I’m sure we’ve all been through this frustration of not being able to choose our favorite names on the internet. Finding good email names for your personal email address is an even more common and frustrating problem. maybe it’s too late to choose “firstname.lastname@gmail.com” as your professional email address? Unless you have a unique name, the chances of finding good email usernames like this are very low. someone else may have already taken all those clever email name ideas you came up with today. thanks to the digital explosion! but hey, don’t be disappointed. In this post today, I’m going to share some really helpful ideas and creative tips to help you pick good email names for your personal and professional needs. The best part is that these tips still work great in 2022. So let’s get started.
characteristics of good email names:
Before we discuss tips for choosing good email names professionally, let’s discuss some of their ideal characteristics:
- understand your first and last name
- are short, easy to pronounce, and easy to remember
- good email names don’t contain random numbers & special characters, except period, underscores & hyphens.
- they are free of adjectives/words of presumption, such as hot, cool, sweet, handsome, cute, cute, supreme, powerful, etc.
- they should represent you and indirectly reflect your personality
- a professional email address name should not include nicknames.
but the problem is that these ideal usernames for your email address might not be available. without worries! In this blog post, I’m going to walk you through some smart and creative tips to help you get the email usernames you want.
3 things you should never include in your email address
We just discussed the ideal characteristics of good email addresses. Now I’ll talk about the things you never include in your email address:
- your date of birth: When someone’s desired email address isn’t available, they usually add their date of birth (such as 15121995, for December 15, 1995) or simply the year of birth (1995) for the address to make it unique. for example, if jerry’s desired email address isn’t available, you could use something like jerry15121995@gmail.com or jerry1995@gmail.com to make it unique and eligible for registration. Trust me, never ever do this. your date of birth is sensitive information and can be used very easily to hack into your email and social media accounts.
- your contact number: such as your date of birth, your The contact number is also one of the private keys that hackers can use to get into your accounts. don’t even use the first 4 or last 4 digits of your contact number.
- any government-issued identification number: any government-issued number, such as – the social security number, voter card, passport, etc., this type of sensitive information can be used for malicious purposes by hackers. therefore please refrain from adding such things to your email addresses.
gmail, yahoo or outlook? selecting the best email service provider:
Before you find a professional email address for your personal or business needs, I suggest you choose a good email client that suits your unique requirements. for example: gmail, yahoo mail, outlook, aol and mail.com are some of the most used free email clients.
you may want to choose gmail because it is powered by google and thus you enjoy seamless integration with all popular google apps like docs, drive, calendar and hangouts. Similarly, you may want to prefer Outlook because of its clean and modern user interface. and… if you really care about your privacy, you can also try protonmail, the world’s largest end-to-end encrypted email service developed by scientists at cern and mit in switzerland.
I also suggest you read this good post on hubspot where they reviewed the 12 best email accounts for 2022. This will help you choose an ideal email account based on your preferences and requirements.
creative tips for choosing good email address names (for personal needs)
did you select your preferred email account? Now let’s discuss how to choose a good email address name for your personal needs (such as family, school, or college) using the following creative tips and tricks…
✔️tip number 1: try the ideal name format first
start by trying out the ideal format first: your first name (followed by) your last name or your first name (underscore/hyphen/dot) your last name or your last name (underscore/hyphen/dot) your first name. here is an illustration with examples:
If you are able to choose your desired email name, consider yourself very lucky and your search ends right here. Otherwise, move to Tip number 2 below.
✔️tip number 2: try the initials of your name
now try this format: first initial/last name (followed by) your last name first name/first name or first name initial /lastname (underscore/hyphen/dot) your lastname/firstname. here’s an easy illustration with examples to help you with this format:
Still unlucky? No worries, try something unique this time. Follow tip no. 3 below.
✔️tip 3: use valid and appropriate prefixes/suffixes
try adding a prefix or suffix to the desired email name with smart short forms that can include:
- concatenated initials of your first/last name (followed by) your full name or your full name (followed by) initials of your first/last name. for example, in my case, the prefix will be “ar” or“ra” since my full name is abhishek r aj. using this nifty trick at the time of writing this post i can still choose ra.abhishekraj@gmail.com as my email id. this looks pretty clean and professional.
- You can also try prefacing salutations based on your gender or profession like “sir“, “mrs“, ” mrs” or, depending on your profession, use “er” – for engineer, “ca” – for public accountant, “adv ” – for lawyer, and “doc” – for doctor. If you are in a creative profession, you can even use “blg” for blogger, “yt” for youtuber and “gd” for graphics.designer.
- if still no luck, you can try the prefix or suffix of the name of your city, university, place of work or some other valid professional association.
Here’s an illustration with examples to help you with this tip:
In case you still turn out to be unlucky, please follow the Tip Number 4.
✔️tip 4: let’s personalize it now
Another smart idea for creating the best email names is to add a personal touch to your usernames. for example, you can try adding personal prefixes like ‘hello’, ‘let’s+mail’, ‘this+is’, ‘your’, ‘say+hello+to’, ‘say+hello+to’ or ‘i+ am’ to your first name, last name, or even your nickname. take a look at the following screenshot, for example:
Still out of luck? Damn! Move on to Tip number 5.
✔️tip 5: try less popular email service providers
With a very popular email service (such as gmail), it is difficult to choose an email name of your choice. Gmail itself has more than 1.5 billion active users. therefore, unless you have started using it early, choosing unique email names in such an email client is a difficult job. Also, Gmail does not allow the use of underscores and hyphens in usernames. this makes it even more difficult to create good email usernames.
what is the solution then? switch to alternative email clients. If you are looking for free email services, Outlook and Yahoo Mail are good alternatives to Gmail. Otherwise, if you don’t mind spending a few bucks to get the highest level of security and privacy, then you may find Protonmail to be a great alternative to Gmail. In addition to getting a nice email name like yourname@protonmail.com or yourname@pm.me, your emails are end-to-end encrypted with no tracking and no access to user data. here are some screenshots of protonmail ios app:
Tips To Choose Good Email Names For Business Needs:
Good business email names can make a positive professional impression on all stakeholders you may interact with. While many believe that having a personalized email address like name@yourcompany.com is the holy grail for professional email communications, as an alternative, it’s perfectly fine to choose a good email address in a free email client. like gmail. here are some helpful tips to help you create good email names for your business:
✔️tip number 1: just choose your company name
There is much less competition when choosing a business email name compared to personal email names. This is because, in view of trademark and copyright, we generally keep company names unique. Here’s an example of how to choose a good email address name for your business based on your business name:
✔️Tip Number 2: Add the word ‘official’ after your business name
Unfortunately, in the rare event that your company name is not available to choose from, try adding the word “official” after the name. here are some formats to consider:
Alternatives to info@email address
If you create a business email name based on your company’s official website, it’s common practice to choose generic email ids like info@email address. trust me this is overused and doesn’t look professional at all. How will a potential customer feel when they email you at info@email address? you will feel less confident and optimistic. how will you address your email? whom? if he will even receive an answer? That’s why it’s important to look for better alternatives to info email addresses:
- If you are the sole proprietor of the business, use your first name. for example: john@yourcompany.com
- if you are doing a joint venture with two or more friends, you can use a joint email address like team@yourcompany.com
- if you have For a large-scale business, try to use email ids that represent various departments or sections of your company. for example, for the billing department, use an email address such as billing@yourcompany.com. Similarly, for the recruiting department, use an email address like hr@yourcompany.com.
how to choose professional email names for job search?
When you’re looking for a new job, most of your time is usually spent emailing your resume to prospective employers. While how you address your employers does matter, your email address makes an impression, too. a lousy email address containing silly/casual/generic words can damage your professional reputation and therefore your chances of getting a job offer. So, in this section, I’ll share tips for choosing professional email addresses, especially for those looking for a new job:
✔️tip number 1: use only your real name
There is no alternative but to use your full real name in your email address. if it’s not available in gmail, try yahoo, outlook, protonmail, whatever! but, just use your full real name. no name abbreviations, no casuals, even no nicknames. that’s rule no. 1.
✔️tip 2: add your professional qualifications or university name
I understand that if you have a common name, your full name is likely to be used by any email address provider. therefore, try combining your real name with your degree/professional qualifications, or even the name of the university you graduated from. this is professional and generally acceptable. here are some examples:
Bonus tip: If you are presently working in an organization and looking for a job change, then do not use the official email address provided by your present organization.
have all the good email names been used up? try personal branding
If you have a very common name and feel like all those professionally good email usernames have dried up, then it’s time to create your own personal brand. Registering a domain name in your own name is the right first step towards personal branding. Furthermore, the level of competition for personal domain names is much less than the competition for good email names on free email services like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook. therefore, if you really want to appear unique and professional, creating your own personal brand is the way to go.
For example, I can choose to register a domain name in my name, such as – abhishekraj.in & the email address that I can choose will be in the format – raj@abhishekraj.in. can you have such elite privileges on free email accounts? never. registering a domain name is easy. you can buy one for as little as $5 at any popular domain registrar like godaddy.
once you have purchased your desired domain name, you can easily map it with protonmail (plus/professional/visionary account) for a truly personalized and secure email experience. Even better? Mapping your custom domain name this way saves you unnecessary hosting costs that you would otherwise have to pay to maintain a dedicated website (just for a branded email address)!
more tips by email:
- learn how to create a professional email signature (with examples and templates)
- how to send an anonymous email? and make it untraceable.
- cc and bcc in an email: when and how to use them?
- how to end a business email? best closing tips with examples!
- 10 Phishing Email Prevention Tips for 2022
any questions? comments?
I hope you found my article clever and helped you select good names for your personal and business email addresses. please leave your feedback in the comments below.