How to create a creative email address

Along with messaging services and social media channels, email addresses are at the heart of personal and pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­nic­a­tion. That’s why it’s essential to have a cool email name that is easy to remember and makes a statement. When coming up with an email address, you can customise every part of the address, from the local part before the @ symbol to the domain that follows.

What are email addresses made up of?

Email addresses consist of the following three parts:

• Local part: All com­pon­ents before the @ symbol form the local part of an email address. This can include first and last names, company names, fic­ti­tious names, numbers and terms.
• @ symbol: This separates the local part and the domain part. The @ symbol is an integral part of every email address.
• Domain part: After the @ symbol, you’ll find in­form­a­tion about the domain of the email account. First is the domain name (usually the email provider), followed by a full stop. This is followed by a top-level domain (TLD) such as the generic TLDs (gTLDs) .com, .net or .org, country-specific TLDs (ccTLDs) such as .ca or .mx or sponsored TLDs such as .gov, .museum or .edu.

Depending on the email provider you choose, both the local and the domain part of the email address can be modified to create a cool email address.

How to use the local part properly in free email addresses

With free email providers, you can choose the local part yourself when re­gis­ter­ing. However, this only works if your desired username has not yet been assigned to someone else.

The following tips can help you think up a creative and cool email address:

Per­son­al­ised or funny name com­bin­a­tions

Your email address does not ne­ces­sar­ily have to follow the first­namelast­name@ or last­name­first­name@ pattern. To make your address creative, humorous or out-of-the-ordinary, consider using nicknames, pet names, made-up terms, or a mix of your names, interests, and hobbies.

Examples:

• bar­bar­a­book­worm@
• dan­cing­di­vadonna@
• as­tro­logy­god­dess78@
• thet­rav­el­lingteach­er@
• cat­s­ruleth­eworld@
• foot­bal­lis­life@

Combine name, pro­fes­sion, qual­i­fic­a­tions and location

With private, free email addresses, the local part offers users the op­por­tun­ity to emphasise a job, activity or qual­i­fic­a­tion. This lets com­mu­nic­a­tion partners know more about who they are in contact with. In this way, it can be similar to giving someone your business card.

Examples:

• ac­count­ant­first­namelast­name@
• teach­er­first­namelast­name@
• first­namelast­namePHD@ / first­namelast­nameMA@
• doc­tor­first­namelast­name@
• first­namelast­namelaw­yer@
• hairsalon(city or name)@
• nailsalon(city or name)@
• centre­for­med­it­a­tion­andyoga@
• cook­inggroup(city or name)@

Play on words or Leetspeak

Witty and cool email names can also be created using puns or leetspeak. Try re­ph­ras­ing or combining words in a funny way or thinking up puns. Leetspeak is another idea for a cool email address. It’s the online trend of swapping letters with numbers and/or special char­ac­ters that are very similar to each other, e.g. 8 instead of B, 3 instead of E or 1 instead of I.

Examples of puns:

• Hair salons: acutabovetherest@, hair­all­aboutit@, thehair­port@
• Cafés: freu­di­an­sip@, spill­the­beans@, baguette­boutit@
• Burger joints: bur­ger­shewrote@, grillen­ni­um­fal­con@, rel­ish­the­t­hought@
• Gaming: kin­go­floots@, high­score­hard­core­paul@, mine­craftmad@, harry­dot­ter@

Examples of leetspeak:

• 48S0LV7383G1NN32@ instead of ab­so­lute­begin­ner@
• WH3R3STH3B33F@ instead of wheres­the­beef@
• K3W1@ instead of kewl@

What to do if your desired email address is taken?

A lot of free email addresses are made up of first and last names. However, no two users can register the same email address. If the creative email name you’ve come up with is already taken, you can get around this by using ab­bre­vi­ations, adding numbers or your date of birth.

Examples:

• last­name­first­name@ instead of first­namelast­name@
• use only the first three or four letters of your first name and last name
• first­namelast­name/last­name­first­name + date of birth
• first­namelast­name/last­name­first­name + favourite number/lucky number or a random com­bin­a­tion of numbers in front of, behind or between your first name and last name.

How to create a creative email address with a custom domain

The local part of an email address can be cus­tom­ised, whether you are using a free email account or a paid email service. This is ap­plic­able to busi­nesses, families, clubs, artists and or­gan­isa­tions alike. With a paid email provider, you get extensive options for creating a custom email domain, providing you with more creative freedom. You can also go a step further and host your own mail server. While this does involve more ad­min­is­trat­ive effort, you’ll have complete control over your email inbox, domain and email address.

When creating a pro­fes­sion­al and unique email name, choosing a pro­fes­sion­al, reputable email address is essential for busi­nesses. Funny puns, fic­ti­tious names, nicknames or leetspeak can come across as unserious, resulting in customers being put off or with emails from your address being cat­egor­ised as spam. When choosing a name, make sure that it matches your industry, your needs and your image.

The variety of custom domain ex­ten­sions

With free email accounts, the domain part usually contains the provider’s name such as @gmail.com, @outlook.com or @yahoo.com or country-specific TLDs from the ccTLD list such as .uk, .mx or .ca.

With the right provider or email server, you can use a variety of options to better cat­egor­ise your TLD, for example, you can use regional ref­er­ences. Catchy and dis­tinct­ive regional domain endings include .london and .cymru.

If you want to use a domain extension to com­mu­nic­ate your pro­fes­sion or hobby to others, there are also new domain endings that reference pro­fes­sion­al fields, companies, interests and in­dus­tries such as .on­lineshop, .beauty, .fashion, .pho­to­graphy, .hiphop as well as many other options. Clubs or even families can also create dis­tinct­ive email addresses with a specific domain such as .club or .family. It’s also possible to combine widely used generic TLDs such as .com, .org or even .biz and .io with names, pro­fes­sions, cities and regions or hobbies.

Examples:

Local part + @ symbol + (name/profession/hobby/city/region/company name).extension

Examples of unique custom email addresses

The following examples are ideas for original, creative, pro­fes­sion­al email addresses with a self-defined local part and domain:

Family email address

Would you like to use a custom domain extension for your whole family? The new domain extension .family is available for this purpose. This allows you to use several per­son­al­ised email accounts with in­di­vidu­al names in the local part and family names in the domain part, so it looks something like this: firstname@lastname.family. An al­tern­at­ive option for a family email address could be this firstname@lastname.xyz.

Club email address

Members of a club or as­so­ci­ation can enhance com­mu­nic­a­tion among them­selves and with external contacts by having per­son­al­ised email addresses. Each member receives their own inbox, which sim­pli­fies managing, or­gan­ising, assigning and archiving digital cor­res­pond­ence. For clubs in­ter­ested in creating their own email addresses, using the domain extension .club is a practical option and is typically formatted as firstname@lastname.club. Al­tern­at­ively, the format firstname@clubname.xyz can also be used.

Email address for company, pro­fes­sion or business

Business email addresses should be serious and pro­fes­sion­al. It’s best to avoid trying to make local parts and domain endings funny. Instead, you should focus on the es­sen­tials. Use the email address to make the company name, your position in the company, your role or your industry clear. Generic TLDs such as the new .business domain can quickly com­mu­nic­ate that your email address is trust­worthy.

Depending on the industry, sponsored top-level domains are also available. These are reserved for certain in­dus­tries, or­gan­isa­tions and in­sti­tu­tions. These include .travel for travel companies, .jobs for personnel man­age­ment or .museum for museums.

Here are some examples:

• firstnamelastname@company.xyz
• department@company.xyz
• department@name.business
• firstnamelastname@company.london (or another regional TLDs)
• branch(or)job@name.xyz

Artists

Whether you are an amateur filmmaker, gallery owner or pro­fes­sion­al singer, choosing a domain extension like .art, .theatre, .music, .film or even .hiphop can transform your email address into a vibrant display of your craft and industry.

Here are some examples:

• galleryname(or)studioname@location(or)name.art
• artistname@location(or)agency(or)company.art
• firstname@lastname.theatre(or)hiphop(or)music(or)art

Hobbies, interests, com­munit­ies

Online com­munit­ies are commonly based on hobbies and shared interests. For example, if you create content on social media for baking, cooking, han­di­crafts, music, dancing or DIY tutorials, you can consider making this clear in your email address.

If you want an address that focuses on hobbies and interests, you could do something like this:

• marychristmasbaker@baking.xyz
• firstnamelastname@doityourself.xyz
• firstnamelastname@(Name of social media channel).xyz
• craftsandscribbles@name.xyz
• firstnamelastname@worldtrips.xyz
• beauty-blog@name.xyz

Domains centred around hobbies and interests aren’t as strict and don’t need a rigid structure, allowing you to be really creative. For example, you can use puns or leetspeak, like 1T-C0AAAAVN1T1@digital.london instead of the standard itcommunity@digital.london.

What are the ad­vant­ages of having a creative email address?

Your business email address is one of the first points of contact with customers. It should be pro­fes­sion­al and catchy, and depending on the industry, also creative and original. If you want to be playful or funny, it’s best to save this for your private email address.

You can use the local part, the domain and the domain extension of your email address to convey important in­form­a­tion about your name, company or industry. A creative email name also lets you boost brand re­cog­ni­tion and brand awareness. Use the potential of a per­son­al­ised email address to stand out from the crowd when sending emails.