The first time I came in contact with email forwarding was long before I started hoarding domains and side projects. It was when I bought my family name as domain.
Back then, Email was different. If you setup your own email server at home, like I did in 2005, you were still received by major email providers. Your internet provider's SMTP servers would allow you to send for any domain, and Google's G Suite still had a free option. You had a bunch of semi professional email providers with funny domain names though, something you do not easily find these days.
However, the first time I wanted pure email forwarding was when I bought my surname.tld domain. I did not want to host any content, and I did not want any third party mailboxes who then save copies to use for forwarding. I really just wanted to receive emails to my ISP's email account.
Why familyname.tld?
Not only back then but even today having your surname as domain is considered something special, especially by non IT people. Most people have their [email protected] emails and at some point made a [email protected] email later. One being too immature or random for professional things and one being too personal for random things. A third one is often too much hassle because these are already 2 different inboxes you have to check at best on daily basis.
With my [email protected] email address, often times people think I am a company. Sometimes they just look at me like some kind of magician. But in almost every case, it is impressive and leaves a good professional impression. Which is exactly why I originally bought it.
Make your family happy
It goes without saying that I didn't invent my family name on my own. There are a bunch of people who share that name with me. Today even my grandmum has a custom email with her name (even thought it goes into the mailbox of my mum).
I think the happiest was my brother. He got so much positive feedback for his email address from possible employers that it made it worth it 100 times.
And think about it, HR people only browse your CV very fast. Every little detail that can make you stand out, especially on the first page, is good.
Get your surname domain
Yeah I get it, most people are not gifted with a relatively rare name. But with all the new TLDs we got a huge selection from possible domains to choose from for your family domain. You can also add suffixes, like "family" - eg surnamefamily.com. You might think you are stuck with .com, but what about .net, .org or even .me?
If you are from a different country you may just want to choose your local TLD or if not available also look into options like .net or .me
If that made you want your own surname.tld email address, check out our Email Domain Registration page to search for your domain, which we will preconfigure for ForwardMX, to make it easy to get the perfect family email solution.