<p>The joy of graduation last month is starting to fade into the harsh reality of looking for a job. First order of business: securing a professional-sounding gmail address. My daughter has a fairly unusual name, but already on gmail her firstname.lastname is taken. In all permutations. Her last name is kind of hard to spell, so I’m suggesting to her that she come up with something that doesn’t use her last name.</p>
<p>For college she has a firstnameclassof2011 address. The drawback of that is that it broadcasts her approximate age. In some cases that would be okay, but I think it’s best to avoid.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any suggestions for coming up with a novel but professional gmail handle?</p>
<p>Don’t overthink it. How about her first name, middle initial, last name. Or first name, last name and a number? It just needs to be something simple that people can somewhat recall to email to, or recognize to respond to.</p>
<p>So something like:
MaryLSmith
or
MarySmith2</p>
<p>I don’t recommend first name/middle initials because it is very easy to misaddress the email on the other side. I would lean towards MLSmith or SmithMary or SmithML.</p>
<p>Using her name is the way most go these days. There are many combinations available. In my family we all use a dot between the names, but others use underscore or nothing.
firstname.middleinitial. lastname
lastname.middleinitial.firstname
same as above but use the middle name, not initial
same as above using first name initial along with middle initial</p>
<p>try try combinations, she should be able to get her name in somehow.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions! MomofWildChild, what do you mean by middle initials being misdirected? You mean the person types in the wrong e-mail address?</p>
<p>My daughter will need to use a middle initial or spell out the whole name.</p>
<p>Snowball, my daughter’s last name is hard to spell. Should she still use it?</p>
This is what I would suggest even with the odd spelling. A “.” or an “<em>” in an email can be lost in translation or visually (ie M.Smith@gmail or M</em>Smith@gmail) when you have to write/enter it on a form that has a line at the bottom. My husbands has both in his work email and it’s a PITA!</p>
<p>Lurkness, with a difficult to spell last name, I’d recommend that she just use her first name and last initial, or part of the last name. Otherwise, she’ll always have to spell out her address and people will likely never remember it. <a href="mailto:Lurk0602@gmail.com">Lurk0602@gmail.com</a> or <a href="mailto:MaryL602@gmail.com">MaryL602@gmail.com</a>…</p>
<p>Both of my daughters came to this same conclusion to get rid of goofy sounding email addresses. They now have multiple addresses, one that sounds the most “professional” (using their entire name) down to shortened versions like above for their personal accounts. They have all their mail (including the univ address) routed so they see it from their gmail accounts, I think…</p>
<p>I always have to spell my last name and it isn’t that difficult!! I am not a fan of the underscore; like blueiguana said, the underscore gets lost. Personally, I like to see a last name in an email address; that way you are sure which Mary you are sending and email to. How many times has someone sent you and email meant for someone else with the same first name? My husband is notorious for doing this; he starts typing Mary and then clicks on the first name that comes up, instead of noticing that he just sent an email meant for the CEO of the bank to his cousin!</p>
<p>I would vote for first name+last name or at least initials for the first and/or middle initial. </p>
<p>One letter I find people have trouble with is the lower case “L-l”; people think it might be a 1 (one) or upper case (I).</p>
<p>We all have more that one email address and have them all forwarded to our gmail address. I have two gmail addresses; one is personal, the other is for stores, airlines, websites and any place that ask for an email addresses.</p>
<p>If you have a dot in your Gmail address, Google also forwards mail addressed to the same address without the dot. So if your account is <a href="mailto:Firstname.Lastname@gmail.com">Firstname.Lastname@gmail.com</a>, then FirstnameLastname is just another way to spell your same account, as is firstname.lastname.</p>
<p>Lurk, My younger sister is about your D’s age and has the funkiest g-mail email on the planet. I can never remember it and it’s the most unprofessional thing ever, lol. It’s something like oh my gosh something something something and a few dots here and there. Thankfully when she was looking for jobs she used her .edu e-mail because they probably would have automatically deleted anything, lol! I’ve pretty much given up on e-mailing her because I always get it wrong. </p>
<p>I would suggest something like this… Say my name is Mary elizabeth smith and I was born on october 12th… how about something like <a href="mailto:MES1012@gmail.com">MES1012@gmail.com</a> or something along those lines? I have my own domain so I just use <a href="mailto:msmith@mydomain.com">msmith@mydomain.com</a> which is great…</p>
<p>I would avoid a birthdate because of security reasons…hopefully everyone else has come up with some good suggestions for the OP. I am such a dinosaur I don’t have a gmail address but at least I don’t have an aol which apparently puts you markedly in the far past. DS got a gmail account at the very inception of gmail and tells me that is how you know someone is “with it” technologywise…they got the <a href="mailto:firstnamelastname@gmail.com">firstnamelastname@gmail.com</a> and didn’t have to put in numbers or something because they weren’t the first.
Thankfully I have my own domain name via work so I have a professional email and no one can guess my age or my tech worthiness!</p>
<p>I would avoid birthdate and full name or full first last and MI for security reasons. Just extra precaution.</p>
<p>If last name is difficult to spell, I would use only partial (too much possibility that someone will get one letter wrong and the email will never go through). I just noticed that someone I had been trying to email has the letters “esq” in his address, not the “eso” that I had been using because that’s how I read it. This would be a disaster in a job hunt - to miss an interview request, etc.</p>
<p>Adding numerals at the end often solves the “name taken” problem, but I would try not to use actual birthdate.</p>
<p>I would avoid the catchy “<a href=“mailto:hardworker@”>hardworker@</a>…” type. I don’t think they sound professional, and can come off as silly.</p>
<p>For userids, I’ve sometimes used combos of initials/birthyear (abc19xx) and initials/zip (abc99999). Just ideas since there are pros/cons to every method.</p>
<p>I’m not a fan of numbers in an email address. No one will remember the number. Many people work for companies which automatically use last names as part of the email, so I don’t see a problem using a difficul-to-spell last name as an email address. Makes the person more memorable.</p>
<p>I attended a resume writing class this spring. The facilitator stated that a professional email should be a gmail account and always use your name. Ons shouldn’t worry about the spelling, because it is another way for someone to remember you by. And as far as a resume is concerned, you would put your email address on every page of your resume/cover letter, so that in case it becomes separated, they can get in touch with/ have your name. Do not use your birthdate in your email, it can be counted against you.</p>
<p>Another thing I’ve seen (for people who have long or difficult to spell last names) is first name and then middle and last initial-- something like lilycr@gmail or something. You could also put a dot in between for lily.cr@gmail to separate it more.</p>