More than two years ago I wrote a small essay about Identity and Self-Expression. That essay was written in response to Chris' submission to the Gravatar contest. At the time, I advocated for people to use whatever identity they wanted to use when communicating online. I still generally support that position.
It was extremely interesting to me, though, to review the email addresses people used when checking in for the Ohio LinuxFest. Of the people who registered with a GMail address, the overwhelming majority of those people used their full name as their email address in the form first.m.last@gmail.com. A smaller percentage of folks omitted the middle initial.
I've been mulling this over for quite some time. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, if anything; and I don't have a larger body of email addresses against which to compare to determine if a lot of people are using their full name, or just some sub-section of tech- and net-savvy geeks. I personally find it interesting, but find it hard to articulate specifically why.
Do you use your full name for your email address? Why?
'Cause it's in my domain name. Well, that's a cheat - it's more a nickname, and the address I give out isn't on my domain, but I certainly have many an email address with 'mikelietz' in them.
In fact, I believe I have a gmail account under that very name, though no periods or middle initials to be found. It's not the one I use, however.
I *wouldn't* use my formal full name, with or without middle initial. It seems too, well, formal. I'm considering even changing over my resumes to read "Mike" instead of "Michael", come to think of it. Anyway, it's too much to type.
Why? It's what I always wanted but never could have. Before Gmail it was difficult to find a good free webmail service where you could use something like your real name (instead of bob45838@aol.com). Gmail introduced the "dots" to the masses, and even suggests them when you sign up.
Why do I like dots better than underscores or whatever? I dunno. It just seems more natural. Maybe for the same reason I like foo.bar better than foo->bar. Sorry, PHP.
My cousins tend to use first.m.last variations, including firstdotlast, and my "official" email address (used for billing issues, etc) is f-last. I guess it depends on whether it's for fun or professional use? My most frequently used email address (the one I give to friends) is not my name, though.
My blog isn't associated with my name, either (or it wasn't till some dumb friend of mine linked to it using my real full name), and since it's not always family friendly, I would never send my family the link. (This gets into a totally different discussion.)
I used to also have a license plate that was my online name. I stopped that when I got stalked.
I use my name on my email, and I suppose because I haven't ever really become terribly attached to any other persona. I have an ID that I use on a couple of bulletin boards, like Gleemax and Giant in the Playground Games, but it's a specifically gaming related thing. I wouldn't want to be handing that one out all the time. My name is pretty straightforward and easy to remember too (for me as well as those sending me mail).
It greatly depends on whether it is personal or business. My work email is firstname.lastname@company.com, my personal one is definitely not that "serious". That being said, I do use another domain for "personal business" too, and there I use either firstname.lastname@example.com or just firstname@example.com
I guess I'm just portraying a very confused online persona, which probably is a correct representation I guess.
As for non-email personas, I'm more and more moving away from h0bbel and over to my real name. Why? Well, h0bbel is hard to type, people get it wrong. After all, who on earth uses a name with a '0' in the middle of it (no surprise that my nick was concocted while insanely drunk)? Anyhow, my online stuff is moving towards activities I want to be personally associated with. My site, Habari and Gallery are all things that I'm proud of being affiliated with in some way. Why should I "hide" that behind a nickname?
I was lucky enough to get my lastname.gmail.com email and I also bought my firstnamelastname.com domain (which I don't use.)
For most of my emails I use my gmail, since I know that wont change, and it's less of a hassle to deal with if I change hosts and have to set up webmail again. So mailing lists and comments in blogs get the gmail addy.
For domain specific emails, I use variations with the domain name.
For most of my message board posts (including the habari lists) I go by the name "silverwing." Back in 2000 or so I had to sign up for a message board (it must have been one of my first) and when they had me pick a username I looked on my table and saw the book "Silverwing." (The rest, as they say, is history.) That keeps me a little more anonymous online.