Choosing a good and available gmail address in 2022

March 24, 2022 10:35 AM

What are some good tricks for getting a professional sounding gmail account in 2022 for someone with a common name?

I would like to change my gmail address for personal reasons, but am finding it difficult since all the good addresses are taken. I wanted to use something with my name but literally every combination of my first, middle, and last names are taken. I have a fairly common name which doesn't help. Scrambling up orders of names doesn't help, and neither does scrambling letters (short of something just completely incomprehensible) or shortening the names...all taken. I could be johndoesmith8978745 but would really like something without a string of numbers (and low numbers are all taken as well anyway.) I would prefer to stay on gmail if possible. Any tricks that people are using now days since so many good variations of usernames have been snatched up? Searching the site I found this problem started a long time ago and even tried some of the suggestions from that thread but as you can guess...all taken. I was hoping that people might have some more ideas for current times when it is even harder to find something available and that looks somewhat good or professional. I have been banging my head against a wall overthinking this plate of beans so I appreciate any and all suggestions.

posted by johndoesmith to Computers & Internet (22 answers total)

I just tried "jdsmith" + various cities (Cleveland, Chicago, New York) and all were available. Maybe just tack your city or state onto the end and see what you can find?
posted by jabes at 10:43 AM on March 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm firstlastcity@gmail and also recommend this. It's so easy to communicate my email address to people this way and it's probably available.
posted by phunniemee at 10:55 AM on March 24, 2022

Come up with some noun that isn't a name and add it in. If this is a new email address that's going to be more personal but could be professional, then you could use some hobby that you don't mind sharing. Or, if it's more professional, use some noun from work or your field. I would avoid using a city, because you might move or people might think you live there, and I'd avoid anything that might be ephemeral (like, if you've gotten super into knitting in the past two months only, don't use that). You could also use a color or adjective.

Some ideas to show what I mean:

johnsmithtaxes
johnsmithtech
johnsmithinfo
johnsmithknits
johnsmithlawyer
happyjohnsmith
cleverjohnsmith
techsmith
knitsmith
workingsmith
professionalsmith
posted by bluedaisy at 10:57 AM on March 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

Another possibility, if you went to college, is that your alma mater might allow you to set up an alias that's your name @alumni.youralmamater.edu. I got one of those early on and was able to use my first name only, and I can access it (now) via gmail or redirect it to another email, and it's great for a professional context, since my college will always be on my resume anyway.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:59 AM on March 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

To add on to bluedaisy's comment, many professional organizations offer mail-forwarding as a benefit - ACM for example. Does it have to be gmail? If you're ok with a paid service, we've been pretty happy with protonmail.
posted by jquinby at 11:05 AM on March 24, 2022

I suppose johndoesmithXYZ -- where XYZ = a random three letter combo that doesn't have any... connotations -- might work. I'm not enthused about adding personally-identifying information, especially not (from that old thread) birth year.

But: as someone who snagged firstname.lastname@gmail early on and now receives all kinds of misdirected email, I see what can happen when people try to communicate name.with.a.twist@gmail to other people.

I think the "good or professional" option here is to register a domain through a provider that offers forwarding, and then use GMail as the client. That's what I do.
posted by holgate at 11:08 AM on March 24, 2022 [14 favorites]

Yeah, I don't regard Gmail addresses as professional-looking. What's so professional about using adware anyway? A domain + forwarding is the way to go here, in my view.
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:17 AM on March 24, 2022 [3 favorites]

Perhaps combine your name and location by appending your zip code, such as [e-mail].
posted by davcoo at 11:20 AM on March 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

I would prefer to stay on gmail if possible. Any tricks that people are using now days since so many good variations of usernames have been snatched up?

Professionally, I grabbed First Initial Last Name dot org last summer, and set it up with Google Workspace at the most basic tier. If you want actual Gmail without messing around with forwarding, it's something like $5/user/month, which is worth it for me (I get a lot of emails and I do actually like Gmail.)

I've also seen people use professional email addresses like [e-mail] or [e-mail], for what that's worth.
posted by All Might Be Well at 11:20 AM on March 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I don't regard Gmail addresses as professional-looking

As someone who is in hiring, the positive of a nice boring gmail address is that it's invisible. No one will blink at a gmail email with your name in it somewhere.

A couple of us will do a little lol at folks who apply with hotmail addys, and we all do a nice big lol at people applying to jobs with something like patsfan69@yahoo. But none of it matters.
posted by phunniemee at 11:23 AM on March 24, 2022 [13 favorites]

If you’re stuck on gmail, go with “therealfirstname lastname.” That really put’s it out there. Otherwise, email forwarding is your friend.

But, like the posters above suggest, I think it’s more professional to have your own domain (lots of new tlds like .email, .network, .llc, etc.) Many registrars are cheap and provide email forwarding among other services (I use Cloudflare).

You can also use a free email account with any free mail host or with mail.com which allows you to select from one of their 200 different domains, then forward it wherever you want (and also stop the forwarding if the account becomes a spam magnet).
posted by sudogeek at 11:30 AM on March 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

Just a small aside about Proton Mail (and presumably other anonymous services)--I totally understand the desire, need, and utility of anonymous email services but when the business I work at gets inquiries from these address we're immediately suspicious of scams since very frequently that has been the case.

And I agree with the others here about getting your own domain and forwarding as the best solution.
posted by sevenless at 11:32 AM on March 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

ContactDaveSmith
TheDaveSmith
ThatDaveSmith
HelloDaveSmith
TalkToDaveSmith
posted by nouvelle-personne at 11:38 AM on March 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

Similar to zip code above, I have a friend who sues firstnamelastnameareacode@gmail.

So, JaneDoe212 if you live in NYC.

I have also seen number first then name. So 1JaneDoe@gmail.

Also try firstname letterX lastname. So, JaneXDoe@gmail.

It is an interesting problem for everyone younger than say 20, going forward. In 2005, I claimed 4 variants to my name @gmail. Firstinitiallastname, firstnamelastname, firstnamemiddleinitiallastname and firstnamemiddlenamelastname. If someone contacted me with the same name and asked about how they could obtain one, I would consider giving them one as I only use one and sometimes another, but at least not two.

I also "claimed" and then gave to them, all my kids names @gmail. Firstnamelastname and firstinitiallastname. I gave it to them when they went off to college. That doesn't really help you, but for others out there, it might.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:41 AM on March 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

My kids all have addresses with their name plus a favorite number (like johnsmith10@ or jqsmith14@) and I think they look totally fine. So far they’ve been working out when others receive them.

For whatever reason, few good new email services have launched since Gmail, so hiring people need to be understanding that most people are forced into leftover names, and that people are often too busy to mess with and trust custom domain email, and I think most have realized that by now.
posted by michaelh at 11:55 AM on March 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

I use my first and middle name, which is a bit of a pain to spell out but it works and is professional.
posted by missrachael at 12:28 PM on March 24, 2022

I regularly email someone named, say, John, who's email address is [e-mail] and it's great. If you have a short enough name, [e-mail] would also work.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:39 PM on March 24, 2022

I advocate getting your own domain name. It costs $10-20/yr to maintain, and you can hang as many addresses from it as you want. There are a lot of new TLDs, so don't despair if you can't find a .com address you like.
posted by adamrice at 12:49 PM on March 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

definitely get your own domain. I'm [e-mail] and I am hosting at Google Apps.
posted by mmascolino at 1:33 PM on March 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

I regularly email someone named, say, John, who's email address is [e-mail] and it's great.

I have two friends who do something similar. [e-mail] and [e-mail]
posted by jessamyn at 4:44 PM on March 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

Do you have an advanced degree? [e-mail] or [e-mail] could be options?
posted by raccoon409 at 6:06 PM on March 24, 2022

Response by poster: Thanks so much for all the suggestions, I felt frustrated but at least now believe I have some options and no longer think I must be missing something simple. Every order of placing my first, middle, and last is taken, I have to believe either there are a lot of people who share the name, someone took a bunch of versions, or even that there are a lot of spam bot accounts being made.

I also hope more come in and that it helps other people too on this, as I've come to realize what a problem this is, especially for those younger than me. JohnnyGunn's comment really struck a chord, I have now claimed accounts for my young kids so at the very least they will have some options as they get older!

While I don't have plans currently, I have lived in several cities in my life and the possibility remains to move in the future. I liked the idea of adding the city or state i live in but don't want to be in this boat again in the future if I should move.

I also really liked the ideas from many of you of adding something like a hey or a noun or adjective. This opened up another rabbit hole of figuring out what I want! I was pretty tied to gmail mainly because of google, my wife and I for example love google photos and being able to share all of photos, especially of our kids so I am also looking into buying a domain and running it through google/gmail.

Thanks again to everyone, and I am still hoping for more suggestions. I also didn't want to mark answers because what works for me might not work for others that come across this thread. I am also still wondering where this leads in the future for kids growing up, maybe they just really won't care for long numbers or other solutions in the future for usernames or emails being taken...
posted by johndoesmith at 9:46 AM on March 25, 2022 [1 favorite]