What are people’s thoughts on an ideal personal domain name?
firstlast.com seems the obvious choice, but it gets pompous when used for things you’re the author of but not the subject of, like “andrewredford.com/my-js-library” or “andrewredford.com/notepad”.
fml.com (initials), if you can score a good TLD? flast.com? Create an unrelated but brand-able name like vegandev.com?
I've started blogging on firstlast.com (using my online alias), but by now I've turned it into my de-facto online portfolio. Most of what I publish goes to firstlast.com/project or project.firstlast.com. I don't think there is anything wrong with this approach: I'm not the subject, but it is my project after all.
The only issue I've had with my domain name was chosing my default email address: I did not like first@firstlast.com, so I went for hello@firstlast.com instead.
I use <last>.com which makes for a neat <first>@<last>.com email.
I've had it for more than 20 years. Funny story is that the hosting company keeps being bought, acquired or merged. I think I went through this process 6 times now which meant creating/converting a new account just in time to pay the yearly invoice.
I'm lucky enough to have a quite rare name, at least in that specific orthography. There are probably a few dozens of us around, and I have a remote idea of who everybody is.
So I manage to get my name.TLD quite easily (one of them was owned by a distant cousin until recently). I think firstname@name.TLD is pretty much the cleanest email address you could have. And I can spin other addresses for members of my family if needed.
> firstlast.com seems the obvious choice, but it gets pompous
I'm not sure why that would be seen as pompous. It is your site, why not have it associated with your name?
I'm lucky enough to have got <last>.<tld> many years ago as my surname isn't that common (though common enough that <last>.com was already gone). Not that I currently have anything hosted on it (I had a personal site with photos and such, but that long since fell to bit rot as life got busy) but it is still handy for email. I have plans to resurrect it for a small amount of "about me" stuff (on <first>.<last>.<tld> maybe aliased as <first>.<middle>.<last>.<tld> to) and to hang some techie/professional projects off (<project>.<last>.<tld>) when I get of my lazy arse and actually implement some of them instead of just thinking about it all.
Unfortunately, for most people <last>.<tld> is very much no longer an option though. For many <first><last>.<tld> is most likely already gone too. If not to an actual person using the domain, or holding it for future use, then to someone who wants to sell it to you with a 900% markup.
> Create an unrelated but brand-able name
This works. It doesn't even need to be meaningful given that most of the time people aren't really aware of URLs the way they used to be, and many brand names are not meaningful beyond being brand names anyway. Your content matters much more than the name, as long as the name isn't in some way inappropriate to the content. Heck, if you don't need the name for branding purposes just pick a couple of random words from the dictionary until you find a pair/triplet/other that scans nicely, and use that.
I think I get the best of both worlds. Because my domain name is a numeronym of my name. So yes, it is my name (in a sense) and personal, but if you don't know me or care it can be anything. Also, it is really short, which I like. (j11g.com).
I don't think there's an ideal, but your tld is a big part of your brand in the long-run. I don't think it has to be based around your name, but basing it on your universal online handle is also a pretty good way to go about it.
I got a devoweled version of my middle name, four letters. Mostly just so I could have my own domain name for email, to get away from google, but I've also started putting up content. Right now it's just recipes, but I'll add other stuff if I find it interesting or important. I do very basic hand-coded HTML, because I'm sick of bloated websites.
I'm not making my site for anyone other than me. Curious people who look at my email address can visit my domain if they want to.
first + last.slice(0, last.length - 2) + "." + last.slice(-2)
No clue if it's a good idea since I've never actually used it and the unusual TLD may throw people off (especially since it is the TLD for a country I'm not from and have never been to). I just thought it was neat splitting my last name across the "dot".
firstlast.com seems the obvious choice, but it gets pompous when used for things you’re the author of but not the subject of, like “andrewredford.com/my-js-library” or “andrewredford.com/notepad”.
fml.com (initials), if you can score a good TLD? flast.com? Create an unrelated but brand-able name like vegandev.com?