How do I pick a professional looking domain name?

April 9, 2008 7:22 AM

Help me pick a professional domain name for email. All reasonable combinations of my name are already taken (the same goes for GoogleMail addresses). I'd like to avoid [e-mail] if I can. I'm going to be using it mainly on CVs.

So, because my real name (any reasonable combination of it..) is taken and I can't get my real name on GoogleMail, I'd like to pick a reasonably professional domain name (a .co.uk) to handle all of my email. That way I can just have [e-mail]

The problem is.. Every domain I think of seems to sound like a lame social networking username or a dot com bubble company name. It'll be used on job applications, recruitment services and CVs. Nothing much else as I'd like to keep it separate from everything else.

I want to avoid getting a friend to forward mail from an already established domain for the same reason I'm not going to use one of my existing domains - I want a little self-contained email domain for work stuff.

I'm not so much looking for actual domain name suggestions - I'd really like advice on how to pick a suitable domain.

So, any ideas? Thanks!

posted by dcbarker to computers & internet (16 comments total)

Are you limited to .co.uk? Have you looked into .org, .net or .name?
posted by mmascolino at 7:26 AM on April 9, 2008

If you're going to be using it for professional resources, the simple general advice is to make sure it is something easy to unambiguously spell and pronounce, so you can give it out over the phone.
posted by jozxyqk at 7:29 AM on April 9, 2008

could you use a combination of your name and your profession? I'm thinking
[e-mail]
or
[e-mail]
posted by fermezporte at 7:30 AM on April 9, 2008

Name of your street and the number of your house, or the same of a better street.
posted by priorpark17 at 7:32 AM on April 9, 2008

I'd prefer .co.uk for a couple of reasons. Cost, primarily. However I've had problems where some recruiters have a bit of tunnel vision when it comes to email addresses and will only send to .co.uk or .com - they tend to forget than other TLDs exist and inevitably my mail get misaddressed.

I want to play it safe so I've got the least chance of confusing anyone.
posted by dcbarker at 7:32 AM on April 9, 2008

In your profession, or educational training, if you were to eventually start your own company, what would you name that company? That may be what you want to name your domain, and keep it for the next 50 years of your career. You may never work for yourself, always for the man, but if you do you're already set with your company domain and email.
posted by netbros at 7:39 AM on April 9, 2008

Is your name David C. Barker? davidcbarker.com isn't registered.
posted by bcwinters at 7:41 AM on April 9, 2008

it is now!! just kidding.

I like davidcbarker.com, but I think this question is subtly industry specific. If you were a designer of a sort, I'm cool with things like:

ilikedavidbarker.co.uk
davidbarkerdesigns.co.uk (even if this is not a company, just an activity)
designbydavebarker.co.uk

If you're a business analyst, totally different rules would apply... Same if you were a plumber.
posted by zpousman at 8:17 AM on April 9, 2008

bcwinters:
Yeah I noticed davidcbarker.com (yup, my name is indeed David C. Barker) and I've been a little torn about registering it. My big worry is that the "c" will fall off and davidbarker.com will get all of my email. Sounds silly but I've known my fair share of recruiters (and even day-to-day business contacts) who don't take the time to proof read the addresses on their emails. I don't know if I'm taking "playing it safe" too far though..

zpousman:
I like the idea of the "cool but pro" however I'm currently going through a bit of a career shift and haven't settled on where that change will take me. So it needs to be either generic or abstract (without bordering into zany and grossly unprofessional).

netbros:
That sounds pretty good actually! But again, the career change thing would make it a big more difficult. However, abstract names could prevail!

Thanks for all the comments so far, keep 'em coming! Your help is greatly appreciated!
posted by dcbarker at 8:48 AM on April 9, 2008

BarkerForHire.co.uk and .com are both available.

Not totally professional, but kind of fun.
posted by quin at 9:12 AM on April 9, 2008

going back to googlemail ... what about mr.dave.barker@googlemail ?
posted by maulik at 9:28 AM on April 9, 2008

I see you currently have http://www.dcbarker.co.uk/
what's wrong with that?
seems like a good domain name for me together with [e-mail]
posted by WizKid at 9:38 AM on April 9, 2008

I'm not sure if others would consider this unprofessional, but if you opt for davidcbarker.com, perhaps you can make sure the C stands out (make it bold, for example) so that recruiters will notice it?
posted by PinkButterfly at 10:28 AM on April 9, 2008

I'm not a recruiter, but I like barkerforhire.co.uk - or barkerforhire [at] gmail, for that matter. It's not entirely professional-professional, but it's catchy.
posted by bettafish at 10:34 AM on April 9, 2008

I own my own name (christopher-schneider.com), and have several emails at it, the one on my resume, is .... "resume". So it works out to "resume@....com". It's fairly professional, and easy. Don't worry too much about what your email looks like. There is a huge difference between "[e-mail]" and "[e-mail]". There isn't a huge difference putting in more work after that.
posted by cschneid at 11:39 AM on April 9, 2008

You may want to do your name and occupation for Google ranking purposes.

i.e.: davebarkertheprgrammer. ... or something like that.
posted by Blandanomics at 8:50 PM on April 9, 2008