Overthinking domain name extensions
Back in the late 2000’s I briefly experimented with buying & selling domain names after I read the story about Nissan.com and realized the value of a good domain name. I was way too late to the game with all the good .com domains already taken and only made a very small profit. Much to my annoyance I found out that the domain my lastname.com is already registered since 1999. I think it would be cool to have a firstname@lastname.com email address for each member of my family, but 9-year old me was not internet savvy enough to register the domain in time.
In Spain there is a abundance of stores & businesses with a @gmail.com email address printed on their windows, doors, and cars. I am probably a bit oversensitive on this topic, but it looks incredibly unprofessional to me. Many of these businesses even have a website so they do have a domain name registered! We do not run a business, but as head of the family IT department I did want to setup more professional looking email accounts for my relatives.
The fact that my lastname.com is registered left me to either brainstorm a new .com domain or use a different extension. I have little creativity (& patience) so after several “domain name already taken” errors I quickly dropped the .com option. My next two favorite options were lastname.nl (our home country code top-level domain) and lastname.me (the country code top-level domain of Montenegro which is also commonly used for personal accounts). Around the world there are to many people sharing our last name as both options were also already taken.
My final shortlist consisted of 3 available domains: lastname.io, lastname.xyz, lastname.cc. All three extensions are popular although the .io domain is most known by its use in the tech & startup world. Since you are visiting this site you know the option I selected! My reasons are that two letter domains are easier to communicate, the .io domain is best known of the three, and who knows maybe my son one day creates a billion dollar tech startup using the family name (no pressure).