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I have set up my own domain and kicking off freelance service in my field, I have been considering my email address and I am not sure how to make it professional. Because the domain name contains my first and last name, I'm afraid it might seem unprofessional or redundant.

How does email cookie@cookiemonster.com or me@cookiemonster.com or hello@cookiemonster.com read as an email address?

In the first example it sounds like it's repeating my name because the domain is already my name but I am not sure. I want to make it sound professional and unambiguous.

Edit: The question was closed due to duplicate, but in the duplicate that person is asking for email on Resume. I am specifically trying to determine which "name" to use with "@cookiemonster.com".

Which of the following would you recommend or advise against? 

 
 cookie@cookiemonster.com

     me@cookiemonster.com

  hello@cookiemonster.com

 resume@cookiemonster.com    ?

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    Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – Jane S Jan 26 '19 at 5:33
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Because the domain name contains my first and last name, I'm afraid it might seem unprofessional or redundant.

I disagree. michael@michaelberry.com (not my domain!) strongly hints that you're talking to me, and not some member of staff that I've also hired. That comes across as a positive, a more personal touch.

You could go for something more generic, like support@michaelberry.com sure - but this is a negative IMHO. It comes across as though you're firing it at a generic mailbox where it may or may not get picked up by anyone.

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    Agreed with this. Just don't do somethng excessive like JohnJacobJingleheimerSchmidt@ johnjacobjingleheimerschmidt.com and you're fine. – Matthew Read Jan 24 '19 at 20:16
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    @MatthewRead Whoa, That email is my email too. – Veskah Jan 25 '19 at 1:38
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    If you actually offer support, then support@somedomain is not negative. You can change the word support to a relevant word that is a positive for you and the customer. – Brandin Jan 25 '19 at 6:23
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    My email is also of the form first@firstlast.com, and I've never gotten pushback. If anything, I tend to get comments like "oh, that's easy to remember!" – Kathy Jan 25 '19 at 21:30
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Many owners of companies have their own name as their email address. As an example, the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has his personal direct email address set to jeff@amazon.com (of course this email inbox is screened by his personal assistants and not every email gets to Jeff Bezos himself). It's not unprofessional at all to use your own name as your company email address. If you happen to be Jeff Bezos and your domain happens to be jeffbezos.com, then I don't particularly see anything wrong with your email address being jeff@jeffbezos.com.

If you aren't a fan of that structure, then I defer to Richard U's suggestion.

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Since this is going to be for a business, you could go for one of these approaches.

  • proprietor@cookiemonster.com

or

  • owner@cookiemonster.com

or something like that. It will instantly inform anyone that you own the company.

Per the comments: other options are:

  • info@cookiemonster.com

  • admin@cookiemonster.com

  • information@cookiemonster.com

  • inquiries@cookiemonster.com

  • contact@cookiemonster.com

  • contactus@cookiemonster.com

  • support@cookiemonster.com

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    proprietor or owner sounds too cooperative. It should sound millennial that is why I put forward hello@cookiemonster.com – user15704 Jan 24 '19 at 15:30
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    @cookieMonster contact would be a good compromise. – Jay Gould Jan 24 '19 at 15:32
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    Ugh. Having an address like “owner@“ makes it seem like the business turns over frequently and you need to be able to reroute the emails! – Ernest Friedman-Hill Jan 24 '19 at 16:05
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    How about "info@" or "admin@"? Those are descriptive by themselves without having to shout out that you are the ceo or owner... – DarkCygnus Jan 24 '19 at 16:16
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    "owner/proprietor" is also very bizarre. I've done a lot of email processing as a programmer, and I've never see that... – Nelson Jan 25 '19 at 2:26
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I'd do firstname@firstnamelastname.com, but I think most people are too busy (like me) for it to matter a whole lot.

If you want to look like a big company, do first.last@company.com, or firstinitiallastname@company.com. You'll also grow weary of typing a long email address a lot. Mine is 12 characters with the @ and the .com. 3 letter first name @ 4 letter domain.com.

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    Feel better :) And I agree, as someone who has interviewed hundreds of people and seen quite a few self domains, I didn't give a toot what their email address looked like. Ever. – StackOverflowed Jan 25 '19 at 0:23
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I have a domain that has my name in it as well. What I like to do is customize the e-mail to the sender when working professionally. So, for instance, if I'm giving a resume to somebody at AmazingTech, then my email for them will be AmazingTech@FirstLast.com.

When I don't customize it, then contact@FirstLast.com is one of my defaults.

The first technique has the added benefit that if a company has a data breach, and you start getting spam emails to it, you know where the spam is coming from, and you can easily shut it down without affecting any other incoming mail.

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    contact@FirstLast.com for sure looks good in all contexts. – vikingsteve Jan 25 '19 at 8:07
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Your name is fine. <Your first name>@<your company name>.com is fine, if you HAVE a company name.

The only thing that looks really unprofessional is a 'cute' or jokey name. Don't. You'll regret it.

(If you insist on calling yourself cookiemonster at least spell it right!)

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    Yeah I knew a girl who got her email address in high school (princess69_*something*@yahoo.com) and she still uses it, 20 years later. Seen it on resumes and what not... – StackOverflowed Jan 25 '19 at 0:25
  • I think cookiemonster was meant as a fictional company name or domain name. – Brandin Jan 25 '19 at 6:25
  • @Brandin I think cookiemonster was meant as a fictional person's name. Like john.long.middle.name.doe@johnlongmiddlenamedoe.com. – Alexander Jan 25 '19 at 10:09
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Ultimately you are over thinking this, your email address is pretty inconsequential vs providing quality service and delivering good value in your business. People type your email address once, or even never, and then rely on their stored contacts. All that matters is they can recognize which adress belongs to you, in the case that there are multiple Cookie's in their contacts. Your domain already handles that.

In my opinion, any email address that is not expressly unprofessional is inherently professional, you should use whatever you feel has the best 'ring' to it.

Having accused you of overthinking, I should mention I have been freelancing for well over a decade with my domain being my name, I chose 'mail@myname.com' to avoid the 'redundancy' and nobody has ever mentioned anything about it one way or the other. I would estimate the impact of this decision to be virtually nil.

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  • This is not true. For example, I type e-mail addresses every time, and make use of auto-complete to select the right one. That is still a form of typing, and if I have to look at an unprofessional e-mail address every time I type it, it can have a subtle effect, which is the whole point of this question. – Brandin Jan 25 '19 at 6:28
  • that's exactly what my answer says, people use autocomplete based on past contacts, so it only matters that the address be identifiable as you and not be expressly unprofessional. whether you consider autocomplete to count as a form of typing seems irrelevant to the substance of this answer. – Cameron Roberts Jan 25 '19 at 16:10