5 ms·

My main email address is <myreallastname>@gmail.com. My surname is not a very common one, yet I still experience many of the side effects described here. I've h

by wyclif 6y ago

My main email address is <myreallastname>@gmail.com. My surname is not a very common one, yet I still experience many of the side effects described here. I've had this account since the first day Gmail was available to the public, April 1st 2004—I was invited by a friend who worked for Google at the time. Back then, I never considered this address an "OG" address, but then around 2012 I noticed something funny. I volunteered to do some charity work and everyone was asked to sign in to a log book and write down their email address with a pen. Several people who worked for this charity said to me "How did you get that email address?" and seemed to think it was unusual that I had a Gmail address that was simply my last name. When I asked them what their email address was, they'd say something like "fluffybunny32428@hotmail.com" or something like that. Hard to believe people use those kinds of addresses for official business and applying for jobs, but they do. My name is also very English. So when I get missent email, almost everybody using my address is from the UK, Canada, Australia, or NZ.

chillfox 6y ago
Most people with average computer literacy has no choice but to use the fluffybunny32428 style email addresses. To get a good email address these days you either have to be very early at jumping on a new email service or you have to be skilled enough to use your own domain.
- Normille 6y ago
  Most 'FluffyBunny...' style addresses and usernames I see tend to end in a 2 digit number which is obviously the user's birth year, which they added when told that plain old 'FluffyBunny' wasn't available. Not a very sensible idea, given how many sites have "What year where you born?" as one of their security questions.
  - Spare_account 6y ago
    >"What year where you born?" Anecdata from me: I've never seen this as a security question, I'm willing to concede that I didn't notice it because I just pick a security question at random and record it in my password database with a made up answer so that I can satisfy their test later on without using a real, guessable answer.
    - Normille 6y ago
      This is exactly what I do too. I've mentioned before on here; it did come back to bite me once when I had to ring my insurance company and confirm that my mother's maiden name was... er... "Hitler"!
    - RandoHolmes 6y ago
      I personally think those sorts of "security" questions are stupid and I have a standard answer to all of the security questions so I don't have to remember what I put.
murrayb 6y ago
I have a firstname.lastname Gmail account. Neither frst or last are particularly common. There are various people around the planet who hand out my address as there own, I get invoices on a regular basis but also correspondence from real estate agents and legal correspondence. Most recently I spam listed a Canadian telco because some gentleman in Canada is joyfully handing out my address. On the other hand I very rarely get someone else's snail mail and if I do it is for a neighbour I know a house or two away and never someone in another country :-)
- wyclif 6y ago
  I get loads of invoices, too, from all over the Commonwealth. The more I think about it, the more I suspect the author is right: there are a lot of people out there who think you can just type someone's last name into webmail and it's just going to magically go to the person they intended.
  - ponker 6y ago
    Well that is how Gmail works if it finds a contact in your address book... type the name and it autocompletes. You could be on the receiving end of autocomplete failures that go unnoticed by the sender.
    - wyclif 6y ago
      I considered that, but then I checked and saw that almost all of them are coming from other domains, and often non-webmail domains. Of course, whatever email management software or app they're using on their end could be doing that, too.
      - ponker 6y ago
        I use exclusively custom domain emails but use Gmail to manage all of them.
- chousuke 6y ago
  It can also be that instead of people giving your Gmail address as their own, the receiver ignores the domain and just assumes that it's @gmail.com. I've had that happen a couple times. People also get very confused about + in addresses.
Saint_Genet 6y ago
I too have lastname @ gmail, and I find that many people with the same surname as me, and who have firstname.lastname @gmail don't know the difference between a period and a space in an email address.
grumple 6y ago
Same here. Unfortunately my distant cousins of more advanced age, and my mother, and even my brothers (all of whom have emails only one character off from my own) sometimes mistype. I suspect some groups incorrectly transcribe signups from paper forms as well. I occasionally try to remedy the issues, but I have yet to convince my mother to fix the email on her bank account.
Normille 6y ago
I feel left out! One of my Gmail addresses is <my first name>@gmail.com and I never get interesting titbits intended for other people. Mind you, it probably helps that my first name and surname are pretty unusual. I've also got <my first name>@yandex.com, <my surname>@yandex.com, plus the <my first name>.net and <my surname>.net domain names. So I've pretty much cornered the market in being uniquely identifiable online, for anyone who knows me. Hmmm... maybe I should se if <my surname>@gmail.com is available, just to really tie up the loose ends! UPDATE: Hmmm... <my surname>@gmail.com has already been taken, so I can't complete the set. Chances are I actually set it up myself a long while back and then never bothered to use it, but I'm buggered if I can remember the password.
- Washuu 6y ago
  I have {Hacker News Username} back when Gmail started. Consequently I get a lot of emails in Japanese and airline travel itineraries. I had to add an extra U on the end to meet the six character minimum.(Technically it's Washū in Hepburn, but uu is accepted.) I also get a bunch of Washington State University junk.
C1sc0cat 6y ago
I am switching from my legacy demon email and I was surprised I managed to get my lastname.org.co.uk domain.
52-6F-62 6y ago
I have two such gmail accounts! I got one early on—around 2005 or 2006 which receives a gross ton of spam, so eventually replaced it with one that uses my initials and then my last name which is way less trouble. I got my brother on board around the same time. He just uses our last name at gmail. I'm sure he gets his share of crap.
sandebert 6y ago
> Hard to believe people use those kinds of addresses for official business and applying for jobs, but they do. A couple of years back, a friend was doing some recruiting. One of the applicants had the email address givesdamngreathead@hotmail.com. (Translated, it was in another language.)
LorenPechtel 6y ago
I'm lucky. I have <firstname>.<lastname>@gmail.com, I haven't had a single case of misuse. On the other hand, it appears my name is unique in the world. The only things I've ever found under my name that weren't written by me appear to be people scraping for content and trashing the format--I've found plenty of examples of words attributed to me that were really quotes.

by wyclif 6y ago

chillfox 6y ago

Most people with average computer literacy has no choice but to use the fluffybunny32428 style email addresses. To get a good email address these days you either have to be very early at jumping on a new email service or you have to be skilled enough to use your own domain.

Normille 6y ago
Most 'FluffyBunny...' style addresses and usernames I see tend to end in a 2 digit number which is obviously the user's birth year, which they added when told that plain old 'FluffyBunny' wasn't available. Not a very sensible idea, given how many sites have "What year where you born?" as one of their security questions.
- Spare_account 6y ago
  >"What year where you born?" Anecdata from me: I've never seen this as a security question, I'm willing to concede that I didn't notice it because I just pick a security question at random and record it in my password database with a made up answer so that I can satisfy their test later on without using a real, guessable answer.
  - Normille 6y ago
    This is exactly what I do too. I've mentioned before on here; it did come back to bite me once when I had to ring my insurance company and confirm that my mother's maiden name was... er... "Hitler"!
  - RandoHolmes 6y ago
    I personally think those sorts of "security" questions are stupid and I have a standard answer to all of the security questions so I don't have to remember what I put.

murrayb 6y ago

I have a firstname.lastname Gmail account. Neither frst or last are particularly common. There are various people around the planet who hand out my address as there own, I get invoices on a regular basis but also correspondence from real estate agents and legal correspondence. Most recently I spam listed a Canadian telco because some gentleman in Canada is joyfully handing out my address. On the other hand I very rarely get someone else's snail mail and if I do it is for a neighbour I know a house or two away and never someone in another country :-)

wyclif 6y ago
I get loads of invoices, too, from all over the Commonwealth. The more I think about it, the more I suspect the author is right: there are a lot of people out there who think you can just type someone's last name into webmail and it's just going to magically go to the person they intended.
- ponker 6y ago
  Well that is how Gmail works if it finds a contact in your address book... type the name and it autocompletes. You could be on the receiving end of autocomplete failures that go unnoticed by the sender.
  - wyclif 6y ago
    I considered that, but then I checked and saw that almost all of them are coming from other domains, and often non-webmail domains. Of course, whatever email management software or app they're using on their end could be doing that, too.
    - ponker 6y ago
      I use exclusively custom domain emails but use Gmail to manage all of them.
chousuke 6y ago
It can also be that instead of people giving your Gmail address as their own, the receiver ignores the domain and just assumes that it's @gmail.com. I've had that happen a couple times. People also get very confused about + in addresses.

Saint_Genet 6y ago

I too have lastname @ gmail, and I find that many people with the same surname as me, and who have firstname.lastname @gmail don't know the difference between a period and a space in an email address.

grumple 6y ago

Same here. Unfortunately my distant cousins of more advanced age, and my mother, and even my brothers (all of whom have emails only one character off from my own) sometimes mistype. I suspect some groups incorrectly transcribe signups from paper forms as well. I occasionally try to remedy the issues, but I have yet to convince my mother to fix the email on her bank account.

Normille 6y ago

I feel left out! One of my Gmail addresses is <my first name>@gmail.com and I never get interesting titbits intended for other people. Mind you, it probably helps that my first name and surname are pretty unusual. I've also got <my first name>@yandex.com, <my surname>@yandex.com, plus the <my first name>.net and <my surname>.net domain names. So I've pretty much cornered the market in being uniquely identifiable online, for anyone who knows me. Hmmm... maybe I should se if <my surname>@gmail.com is available, just to really tie up the loose ends! UPDATE: Hmmm... <my surname>@gmail.com has already been taken, so I can't complete the set. Chances are I actually set it up myself a long while back and then never bothered to use it, but I'm buggered if I can remember the password.

Washuu 6y ago
I have {Hacker News Username} back when Gmail started. Consequently I get a lot of emails in Japanese and airline travel itineraries. I had to add an extra U on the end to meet the six character minimum.(Technically it's Washū in Hepburn, but uu is accepted.) I also get a bunch of Washington State University junk.

C1sc0cat 6y ago

I am switching from my legacy demon email and I was surprised I managed to get my lastname.org.co.uk domain.

52-6F-62 6y ago

I have two such gmail accounts! I got one early on—around 2005 or 2006 which receives a gross ton of spam, so eventually replaced it with one that uses my initials and then my last name which is way less trouble. I got my brother on board around the same time. He just uses our last name at gmail. I'm sure he gets his share of crap.

sandebert 6y ago

> Hard to believe people use those kinds of addresses for official business and applying for jobs, but they do. A couple of years back, a friend was doing some recruiting. One of the applicants had the email address givesdamngreathead@hotmail.com. (Translated, it was in another language.)

LorenPechtel 6y ago

I'm lucky. I have <firstname>.<lastname>@gmail.com, I haven't had a single case of misuse. On the other hand, it appears my name is unique in the world. The only things I've ever found under my name that weren't written by me appear to be people scraping for content and trashing the format--I've found plenty of examples of words attributed to me that were really quotes.