I Got My Gmail Name First And Now I'm Kind Of Regretting It

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

I got an invite during the early beta stages of Gmail so for one of the first times in my life I got firstname.lastname@gmail.com as opposed to having to go with some randomized variant (like, Huerta88 thx. Hotmail).

Cool.

Except there are apparently a lot of firstname.lastname guys out there with my moniker. I’m intimately familiar, now, with the travel schedule of some suit in Phoenix, and know more than I ever wanted to about the alternative life style among South Beach realtors. There are a few others. Plus, I’m an obvious choice for randomly assembled spam lists.

It’s easy for my friends and family to remember, I guess, but I’m beginning to wonder if I don’t want to transition to something a lot more arbitrary and hard to stumble on (I kind of doubt it as even the somewhat-randomized Huerta88 dealie has me more plugged in to various Mexican and Colombian social circles and glurgey e-mails in Spanish than I have a real need for).

Anyone else have a similar Phyrric victory in firsting a username?

#2

Keep the email, set up a server-side spam filter, forward anything not caught by the spam filter to your other email address, set the other email address as having permissions to send from that gmail account (if it’s in gmail, it’s all integrated).

Bam, problem solved, best of both worlds. And yes, I’ve got quite a few emails like that.

#3

I just posted a thread in IMHO a couple of weeks ago about my husband getting a jury summons at his firstname.middleinitial.lastname@gmail.com account. He has a ridiculously common name, but the jury summons was for a guy five counties away.

#4

It’s not spam if it’s mis-addressed email to a different person with the same name firstname and lastname.

#5

When I was in college, my email address was kyla@schooldomain.edu. I was pretty pleased with myself - until I started getting email for the only other Kyla on campus. As it happened, I knew her, and I knew her email address, so I would write back to these people and correct them. But it was pretty freaking annoying, especially because there were some repeat offenders who could not figure out that I was not the Kyla they were looking for.

I have learned my lesson: my gmail address includes my entire name, which has cut down the probability of this happening again down to 0.

#6

I’ve got my first.last@gmail.com because I, like you, was an early adopter. Nothing really bad has ever come of it. Maybe my name is uncommon, but the only time I’ve gotten a noteworthy non-spam email specifically because of the address was when another guy with my same full name sent me an email to congratulate me on getting “our” address. :dubious:

#7

??? A jury summons by e-mail?? Are you sure that wasn’t some sort of spam or phishing?

#8

I chose to use my old fantasy gaming nick for my email back in the day and thought nothing much about it for a long time … until email address started being something you get asked for in all sorts of RL places. It’s vaguely embarassing to start spelling out my address that uses non-Finnish letters, I usually just ask for pen and paper so I can write it down for whoever asks. So yeah, I’d love to have a firstname.lastname address instead.

Oh well, at least it is just gibberish (or hebrew to be more accurate) instead of something like Ironfist.Dragonslayer@gmail.com.

#9

Definitely. The less personal information you put online the better. Real names, addresses, telephone numbers, etc. Where ever I can, I call to make purchases.

#10

I just tried to sign up. I have an extremely uncommon name. It was taken; they offered “myname673.” I seriously doubt there are 673 other people on the planet with my name. I know there is only one other in the US. So I am considering “1stmyname.”
What do you think?

#11

That’s what I thought, so instead of calling the numbers listed in the email, I called the court directly. They confirmed that they normally sent summons through email and that a potential juror had provided my husband’s email address on his questionnaire.

#12

I’ve had my firstnamelastname@aol.com ever since the very early days of AOL. And I have a VERY common firstnamelastname…I get other people’s emails at least a few times a week. I’ve even developed a form letter to deal with it.

#13

Another firstname.lastname@gmail.com here. Never had a problem. Only use the address for family and when I job hunt. Get a lot of spam from the job hunting but Gmail’s spam filter takes care of 99% of it.

#14

I did the same thing and I’ve been pretty lucky. But I did have one person who would not stop sending me stuff, and then they started sending me the glurge. I had to put their email in the filter. I did have some company from Canada want to know when to show up and deliver my refrigerator.

#15

I only once had a problem with it–someone who assumed I was part of their family due to my last name, and sent me an invitation to their family reunion. My name is pretty uncommon, though.

And I use the firstname.lastname format specifically for privacy. It’s the email I give to people who know me in real life. That way, if something bad happens between us, that person can’t stalk me online.

I use another email for online purposes, and I have my real email check that email automatically. I also have a spam account, as well as little throwaway accounts I use when I’m commenting negatively about someone who I think is a big enough asshole to attempt revenge, despite the fact that I try to be as nice as I can.

Finally, I also prefer making financial transactions online. I trust the 128-bit security and large intermediary companies that have a lot to lose if they screw up a lot more than some random guy I talk to on an unsecured telephone. I trust handing over my credit card to a waiter even less and prefer dining where I can see the credit card at all times, or just using cash.

#16

I’ve had this problem forever on AOL. I got mine in 1995 and so have had to endure this for over 15 years.

Even now I regularly get email for people I don’t know. Sometimes it is a nice surprise, like the woman with the ample bosom who sent me a naked picture of herself. On the flip side, the naked men are of much less interest.

I try to send a courteous response: I’m sorry, but you have an incorrect email address.

Amusingly, this simple and direct response still confuses some people. One guy replied: If it was incorrect, then how did you get it? Gotcha! The *Gotcha *was the part that really annoyed me. Not only was he a moron, but he thought he was the smart one.

One girl would not stop copying me. She was young and cute and even often included pics of her and her friends. Even after I explained how dangerous it was to send a unknown man pics of her, she kept copying me. Finally, after months, one night she sent her mom and dad an email saying she couldn’t come home for the weekend because of a big test, and sent her friend an email saying she would be at the beer party. I narced on her. Pissed her off royally, but she stopped copying me on emails.

There’s a guy in New Jersey right now who will not stop using my email address. I have gotten real estate listings for him, delivery confirmations, all kinds of things that, were I different man, I might be able to use to steal his identity. I did ask his Realtor to help him cop a clue, and the amount of email I get for him now has drastically slowed.

#17

If you want to retain your email archive in the new account, pop-enable the old Gmail account and use the new gmail account to vacuum all emails. I did this with about 20,000 mails, and it took about 2 days but was very successful. There are help pages somewhere on the Google site to give you more detail.

ETA: successful although it lost all the labels I’d assigned in the old account.

#18

I get emails for other people. I just politely inform them that their intended recipient isn’t me and wish them luck with whatever the email is about.

#19

I have FirstInitialLastName@dslcompany.com - danalog@cellphones.com.
My last name not uncommon, and my first initial is very common. I get mail for other people every few months. I usually ignore the first one, because it can be hard to tell if it’s a mistake or just spam. If it keeps up, I correct them.

I did get some legal papers about a car crash and insurance investigation once. Very detailed. I replied immediately and let them know about the mistake.
-D/a

#20

I have been following the life of another our.name in the US for years now, she gives my address out all over. I send smartarse replies usually, when she recently had her ISP sending test emails I responded that her only problem was being a moron. Her friends all promise to send me postcards but never do. I have rejected paypal payments and bank statements and seen her pharmacy orders. Now and then she tries to change my password but luckily I have another address linked that they refer those requests to.

Just this week I have started receiving stuff for another googleganger in the UK :frowning: