You Shouldn’t Use Your Real Name!

Your real name is probably the most important piece of your identity.  Perhaps it was chosen by your parents or guardians to honor one of your ancestors, or maybe it was just a name they thought was beautiful.  Whatever the case, for many people around the world, a carefully picked name can determine someone’s future while providing the bearer with a particular outlook.  When it comes to your identity, what is your perspective on protecting your name?

Personally, using your real name is not always the best thing to do.  The blogger behind woodp.com [here on after referred to as woodp] recently asked, ” Is it time to change my travel email address?”  Considering that he uses his full name, I would say “Yes!”  Woodp uses the following email address format:  [fname].[lname]@gmail.com.  Someone else created [fname][minitial][lname]@gmail.com, and then shared the email address [fname][lname]@gmail.com.  The [fname].[lname] and [fname][lname] is treated as equals in gmail.  So for a lack of a middle intial, woodp was bombarded with hymnal emails and potluck details!

There are a few other email combinations that have put woodp‘s name into a fix and for this reason woodp has received other people’s confirmations and even messages from their mother!  This problem would probably be delightful to a scammer or a phisher.  Just think, they would just have to confuse someone’s contacts to get their personal information.  If you have a middle name, don’t put your initial into your email address!  Someone could register your name without the initial and by accident, your friends might send important information to the wrong address.  Better yet, don’t use your name at all!

What about a registering a domain in your name?  It might be a good thing to do if you are a freelancer, but for the most part it probably isn’t necessary.  I used to have my [fname][mname].com but I decided that it was too visible for me.  Other people, like the blogger behind quangly.com might find their name very special and would be determined to own theirs, but when it comes to the possibility of ID theft, it probably isn’t worth the effort if you can getting ripped off by a cybersquatter.  Qangly had a happy ending, but remember, he’s an actor, musican, and artist.  He will profit from having his name out there (and he did some research!).

For your own research, you might want to check out this post: The most rewarding places for ID theft online!