just a simple question about email addresses

I was just signing up for a Gmail account and got to wondering about email addresses. I've noticed a lot of people use their full name as their email address. It would be much more convenient in some ways, but is it wise? I'm just asking this, because I've never seen this issue discussed (that I can recall) and thought it might be useful since a lot of folks are signing up for Gmail. What are your thoughts?

 

It depends on what you want to use the email for!

I have a fairly unusual sir name (at least in the country I live in) and together with my very unusual first name it would be very easy for someone to track me down if they wanted to. So for MSN and other messengers I have a special email that doesn't display my full name. I use the same addys for forum email, and also when I have to register an email addy with a company for some reason (like signing up to be able to download drivers, or demo games or to buy something online etc) to prevent my "ordinary" email from getting spammed.

Then I have a work mail that is provided by my employer, but I don't use it for anything but work. And for friends I have an addy with my full name. A limited amount of people know that addy, so I can keep it very clean, I don't get a lot of spam.

My advice is, have one account (yahoo or hotmail or gmail, doesn't matter much imo) that is without your name, that you can delete if you get too much spam on it. And have one addy that is more protected!

 

As for me i don think we shud use our full names in our email ids n all. Its so because we have already heard about a lot of cyber crimes n all.So its very important dat we do our share in maintaning privacy....

 

I should have been clearer in stating that I think it's a bad idea to use your full name, I just started the thread to get others thinking about it, since I have seen a lot of people using their full name, and it seems like it's inviting trouble. I just thought that this might be helpful, but then I doubt that they visit this site anyway.

 

my surname is my username followed by the year i was born, and use that for almost anything. When signing up for sites that i don't really trust, I'll use my usual username but give a random name like say John Smith!
I wouldn't recommend it as my first ever address was a name one and i got lots of spam from companies that mysteriously knew my name!!!!

 

A lot of ISP's automatically assign you an e-mail address with your new account. These address are based on the customers full name. Some people don't realize they can add e-mail account to their service and just continue using the full name address that they can't change. My wife has one, but she added another email address so she doesn't have to give out the one with her name on it. There are a lot of forums and sites out there that you can't sign up for with what's known as an anonymous mail server like AOL , and Hotmail etc.

 

I've actually never had a problem with my yahoo account, I've even used it for purchasing plane tickets abroad and stuff like that. I've been accepted with that addy where people with hotmail have been refused. Maybe I'm lucky!

 

Just curious,

Is your addy that isn't your name something like Solange, which could be assumed to be a name, or something like,'notmyrealnamesoleavemealone'? I'm being a little obvious here, but do you see what I mean? Do you think it makes a difference if your addy looks like a real name?

Sincere question.

 

Hmm. No, it doesn't really look like a name, but I suppose someone could be named that, it is not filled with numbers etc. I don't know if that makes the difference, or if it's because it is a yahoo addy. I didn't use yahoo.com for that, I used yahoo.se, and I think that is why I haven't had much spam on it.

 

When it comes to spam, I don't think it matters what your e-mail address is. A lot of the spammers get you e-mail from list they buy from other companies. You might sign up for a site one day and then a week later your box starts getting full every day. A lot of people don't read those licence agreements, especially the part that let's you know if they will give out your info or not.

I think it works like this, as long as you don't give out your address, you'll probably never get spam. You might not get any if you give to people you know who won't give it out.