Domain Admins: your policy on email names?

[GeekDrew]

I didn't design our current naming scheme.

System-wide: (first initial)(last name)@companysdomain.tld
Department: (first name).(last name)@departmentsdomain.tld (which is just an alias to the system mailbox)

I personally prefer either of the below, given that middle initial can be omitted if preferred (and not required for distinction), and only using sequential numbering when Middle Initial or Middle Name fails to provide distinction.

LastName.FirstName.MiddleInitial.Sequential
FirstName.MiddleInitial.LastName.Sequential

I don't really think that "shorter is better", nor do i think that email addresses must be easily memorized. That's what business cards do... I wouldn't expect anyone to memorize my email address, nor should they expect me to memorize theirs.

 

[Tremulant]

firstinitial+middleinitial+lastname@company ie: jqpublic@company

If there's a duplicate, then they end up with a number at the end of the alias, ie: jqpublic2@company. Usually only see that for people who don't have a middle name.

 

[Schloonce]

firstinitiallastname

edit: we have >1000 users

 

[alkemyst]

first initial last name.

For conflicts first init, middle init, last. for problematic emails we do use full names.

 

[middlehead]

My last two jobs were firstinitiallastname@, but one was under 150 employees and the other was under 400. Current employer is OVER 8000! and uses firstname.lastname@

 

[alkemyst]

we had 6000+ at our peak. Still used the smaller naming convention.

 

[potato28]

First initial, last name for me because it just gets too long for someone to remember... mainly me.

 

[skyking]

The company is small but growing, so we recently went from just a first name to the initiallastname convention on new users.

 

[sao123]

microsoft exchange server... email addres = domain logon = first initial + full last name

 

[2canSAM]

First Initial Last Name@domain.com for us, Small company though. I actually prefer the firstname.lastname@domain.com setup though.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

industry standard is pretty much flast@123.com or first.last@123.com

 

[BHeemsoth]

Any naming convention is better than what my school uses:

First7LettersOfLastName_FirstFourLettersOfFirstName@xxx.edu

It makes for some silly looking addresses that confuse outsiders.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I work for a very large corporation, and our convention is firstinitialmiddleinitiallastname@domain.com i.e. jqpublic@domain.com.

I like it because it keeps the username relatively short. I don't know if they have problems with uniqueness, FWIW.

 

[classy]

lastname, first initial

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: newb111
Depends on how many employees you have. When you start having 1000 of employees, you need longer names to differentiate.

We have 12,000 employees and even toss in the middle initial along with full names.

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: MotionMan
I have a friend who use to work at Microsoft. What they did was first name plus as much of your last name was is needed. So, if you are the first Kevin to ever work at MS, you got kevin@microsoft.com. If you were the second Kevin with a last name starting with T and your last name was Trick, you could get kevintr@microsoft.com.

I do not know if they still do that.


When I was in law school, the school gave out e-mail addresses using first initial plus the first 7 letters of your last name. I had a friend who had an 8 letter last name, so people got his e-mail address wrong all the time (jblowblow@school.edu vs. jblowblo@school.edu).

MotionMan

We do it similar to that way at the company I work for as well. After the first, we go to first name initial + first 7 letters of last name. If there are more than one bsmith@domain.com, they get bsmith2@domain.com (up to bsmith9@domain.com, bsmith10@domain.com gets fired 😛 )