
The One-Name Email, a Silicon Valley Status Symbol, Is Wreaking Havoc - berkeleyjunk
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cher-elvis-bono-one-name-is-silicon-valleys-status-symbol-1528475180
======
josteink
> Mr. Pham had fired off the email to a first-name-only address at Snap,
> assuming it was the company’s No. 2 executive.

So some people try to _guess_ email-addresses of other people and sometimes
the emails end up in the wrong place?

And this is news?

~~~
msh
You don't need a firstname@ for that to happen.

I have back from the nineties firstnamelastname@hotmail.com of my pretty
common Northern European name. I get all sorts of private emails intended for
other people.

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Reason077
Parents: If you want to help your kids acquire prestigious email addresses,
don't give them a relatively common name like "Peter"!

On the other hand, I have (first initial)(surname)@gmail.com and you wouldn't
believe how many misdirected messages I get for people with the same initial
and surname as me...

~~~
josteink
I have firstname@gmail.com. I could tell you all about how easy you get off.

Interesting fact: most emails I incorrectly receive is because whoever creates
the accounts/makes the orders/etc knowingly provides websites with _my email
instead of their own_.

All in all it’s pretty crazy.

~~~
bojan
lastname@gmail.com here. I really don't understand people. Especially when I
get invoices and/or important-looking reminders.

~~~
drcongo
I have last name at gmail too and I can tell you, we win on misdirected mail
due to people typing `firstname lastname@gmail.com`

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raverbashing
First, having a "one name email" is a needlessly complication and a narcissism
certificate. No, you're not the only Peter/Steve/Michael/John/Anne/Carol in
this company. Even if you just started. Deal with it.

If your name is rare enough that's fine, but it's better to keep to a pattern.
Also use aliases (billing@, legal@, etc).

~~~
stevesimmons
A former manager of mine at a big US bank ended up with the email address like
peter@megabank.com. AFAIK, he is the only person out of 250,000 with a single
name email address.

The email policy used to be that people from acquired companies would keep
their original email address whereever possible, just switch to the bank's
domain.

So in my friend's case, no narcissism, just luck.

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nitwit005
I have a first.last gmail address. I have gotten a few dozen emails intended
for others, notably including legal papers for a divorce.

One thing I learned from getting other people's emails is that some websites
let you pay for things without email confirmation, but require you to receive
the email to access it. Nexon game points or something? I tried to report the
screwup, but the site wouldn't let you contact them without a login.

~~~
bo1024
I experienced a PayPal screwup like this once. Although I never clicked the
confirmation email, the account was apparently still activated and I got
purchase notifications for a little while.

~~~
SpaceInvader
I guess you could just "reset password".

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SamReidHughes
RPI gave out usernames using the first five letters of the last name and the
first initial. The result was, I, a lowly undergrad, got hughes@rpi.edu and a
professor named Greg Hughes, who was around long before me, had
hugheg@rpi.edu. That was funny. All I got out of it were a few emails from
students in his classes.

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subway
One-name is lame. Long live 3 initials!

~~~
jaytaylor
Yes.. and who actually cares what their work email address is? It doesn't
indicate any real power or other valuable prowess.

Max nerd street cred comes with getting something sleek like <yourname>.com,
or <firstname>@<lastname>.com. Even getting that doesn't seem like a
significant social status signal.

I feel like I must be missing something.. :)

~~~
jitl
I have [https://jake.tl](https://jake.tl) but can’t think of a good email at
that domain to put in my From: line. I think me@jake.tl is lame, jake@jake.tl
is repetitive, and root@jake.tl is too faux-oldschool.

~~~
slow_donkey
Seems like the 'trend' is hi or hello @x.com

For personal domains I just wildcard so I can use whatever fits the situation
best. support@ contact@ name@ etc.

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drmpeg
When C-Cube Microsystems was acquired by LSI Logic, we all got to keep our
e-mail addresses. Early C-Cube employees had first/last name initials as
addresses. I ended up with re@lsil.com, which is a pretty sweet e-mail
address.

Later, when Abhi Talwalker became CEO, all e-mail addresses were changed to
firstname.lastname@lsil.com. My manager was pretty unhappy because his last
name was Van Den Crommenacker.

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mike-cardwell
Even though I've been using my own domains for my email for nearly the past 20
years, so can use whatever local part I want, I long ago switched to using
"firstname.lastname@" instead of "firstname@". And that was just to prevent
dictionary attacks. Luckily my surname is not that common, which helps.

I don't think I've ever received any email intended for somebody else.

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Xcelerate
In grad school, my university let us choose our own email aliases. So I had
nick@utk.edu and nick@tennessee.edu for a while. That was pretty nice. And
since there was no limit on aliases, I also grabbed admin@utk.edu. That one
backfired because I started getting some official looking things I probably
shouldn't have, so I released that address back into the pool.

~~~
Lucent
Good times. You could even have 5. A coworker snagged michael@ though.

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brian-armstrong
Hot take: assign everyone the address that's the SHA256 of the first and last
names. That's the only way that's fair, right?

~~~
freetime2
To avoid collisions, use birthdate as salt.

~~~
Freak_NL
Posted in jest of course, but the assumption that the combination of given
name, family name, and birth date is unique has caused plenty of issues in the
past, which is why most nations assign some kind of numeric identifier to each
citizen.

~~~
hoschicz
Note that you shall never assume that the birth numbers or SSNs are unique:
they are often NOT.

I've heard that they are not unique in the US and a few stories from my
Databases course professor about how you should always assign your own unique
IDs to users. Birth numbers change.

~~~
kwhitefoot
> never assume that the birth numbers or SSNs

That's a parochial view, US SSNs are not unique but Norwegian SSNs
(fødselsnummer) are unique. In Norway it is composed of a six digit birthdate
plus a five digit code (personnummer).

~~~
eesmith
They may be unique, but do they change?

Google translates the Norwegian Wikipedia entry as saying "The last digit in
the individual number indicates the gender of the person - different digits
for men and equal numbers for women."

Does this change for transgender people, or for those who undergo sex
reassignment surgery?

I wasn't able to find information about this for Norwegian. The equivalent
entry for Sweden, at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_number_(Swed...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_number_\(Sweden\))
, says :

> In exceptional cases, the number may be changed later in life, typically
> because the date of birth or the registration of gender of the child were in
> error. If a person undergoes full gender reassignment surgery later in life,
> the serial number is changed to make the 'gender digit' (no. 9) conform with
> their new physical sex.

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toomanybeersies
Having predictable email addresses of a set format is both a boon and a bane.

It's a great way to ensure that you get a bunch of spam from random people
looking for jobs etc. landing in your inbox after guessing your email address.

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tscs37
I find the only real status symbol is a three-letter email name, though only
if you're on a big provider or some other big email system.

For company mail just use something unique, nobody cares.

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gregoriol
Having one-name emails is fine until about 5 people. It's a startup, it's fun.
After that, grow up, you're a company, get a real email policy.

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brazzledazzle
So basically people make weird assumptions or take wild guesses about an email
address and havoc ensues.

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freetime2
> He couldn’t get the email at Science, the tech incubator, because it was
> already taken by another Peter, who had co-founded the firm, Peter Pham. Mr.
> Pham had previously tried to get colleagues at the incubator to call Mr.
> Szabo by his last name to secure his status as The Peter of Peter@science-
> inc.com.

I puked in my mouth a bit when I read this.

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Teeer
What a dramatic article over something so silly. WSJ has really gone downhill.

------
Vosporos
Paywall

~~~
lapnitnelav
[https://outline.com/wb32mA](https://outline.com/wb32mA)

