# Owners of \<lastname\> Internet domains: do you also get mail meant for others?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/owners-of-lastname-internet-domains-do-you-also-get-mail-meant-for-others/409480
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 26, 2007, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/owners-of-lastname-internet-domains-do-you-also-get-mail-meant-for-others/409480 "2007-06-26T16:03:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2007, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/owners-of-lastname-internet-domains-do-you-also-get-mail-meant-for-others/409480/1 "2007-06-26T16:03:50Z")

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I reserved $[mylastname.net](http://mylastname.net) for use as my personal site back in 1996. ($mylastname being a German last name of middling frequency).

What I cannot get my head around: every few weeks I get mail meant for a total stranger (a different total stranger every time BTW) of the same last name, who somebody just assumed would have the e-mail address $firstname@$lastname.net

Those of you who also got your last name as a domain: does this also happen to you?

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### Author: ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2007, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/owners-of-lastname-internet-domains-do-you-also-get-mail-meant-for-others/409480/2 "2007-06-26T17:02:46Z")

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Yep. One guy in particular- Ben \<Lastname\>. He contacted me a couple of years back, to see if I would sell \<Lastname\>.org to him, since at that time I wasn’t really using it. However, I finally got off my butt and put together my website, as it’s really necessary for my career. He ended up purchasing \<Lastname\>fam.com instead.

Of course, I still get emails meant for him (as anything sent to \*@\<Lastname\>.org will get to me). For a while I just manually forwarded the emails to him (they were usually from his grandmother, for some reason. Eventually I just set up an email alias for him- anything sent to ben@\<Lastname\>.org will now automatically forward to ben@\<Lastname\>fam.com.