What’s your name? Mine is Jamie Zoch.
Now I know I hold a name that is not the most popular but I still had the right idea and purchased "My Name" as a Domain Name. JamieZoch.com which directs here to DotWeekly.com . Now their are many other people named Jamie Zoch in this world, but only I can own JamieZoch.com now, as they must not of thought about buying it before I did.
Even if you are not famous, do not plan on being famous etc, it is very wise to own your name, as a domain.
People know you. People call you that name. People remember your name. It’s Your Name. It’s You!
One of the most popular searches on the net every single day, are for people’s personal names. Yes, many are famous but they were not one day. You never know what can happen, so I think owning your name as a domain is vital! The .com is KING, and best to own. Consider it a security blanket, branding potential or business.
Your name .com if already registered (owned by somebody), may also be one of the hardest domain names to purchase if you do not own it. Why? It is likely that if somebody owns it, it’s their name as well. Would I ever sell my name, domain name? Not Likely, unless it changed my life with the amount offered for it.
If you do not own your name, in .com, using Whois.sc you can find out if your domain is owned by somebody else with your name or not. If the domain may be for sale, or provide you information to contact the current owner.
Now if somebody happens to own your name as a domain doesn’t make them a "bad person" or a cybersquatter or give you the "right" to own it without coming to terms with the current owner, unless you have legal rights via a trademark etc.
If you haven’t considered purchasing your name as a domain, you might want to consider it before somebody else does or you are unable to purchase it.
For those that have a very popular first and last name combo’s, I wish I had an easier answer for you. One, you can blame your parents for the common name 
, pay up to own it, settle for another TLD or change your legal name.
Mark Fulton
Indeed, I am a big proponent of this idea. So much so that I’ve purchased many .com’s for others in my family.
Over the years I have used http://MarkFulton.com for a personal blog, class presidency campaign website, business website and others.
And as you mention, it’s easy for others to find me via Google, which is huge.
RegFeeNames.com
Yeah this is the best option as you never know what the future may hold.
I cant get the .com of my name but have secured the .co.uk of my name which is fine for me being in the UK – I used to own the .net but let it drop as Im sure another person out there might like to own it.
Regards,
Robbie
newbie
“Now their are many other people…” –> … there are … (spelling)
Scott
Likewise here, I have the .co.uk being in the UK. I also reg’d both my sons names even though one is a toddler at the moment.
Regards,
Scott
Will Castillo
I bought mine back in the 2000 or so… I let it drop… and got it again a couple years ago.
A miracle as Williams Castillo is a common combination at least in Venezuela (I know not less than 6 other Williams Castillos out there, I’ve studied with three of them so… bad luck for them
)
Jamie Zoch
@ 3 Newbie
I have expressed many times… I am here to HELP, and I am no grammar or spelling king.
Ms Domainer
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Agreed.
I regged my FirstNameMaidenNameMarriedName in 2001; my FirstNameMaidenName in 2003; and my FirstNameMarriedName in 2006–all dot com. While my first name is common, my last names are not.
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Domain Superstar
Good advice Jamie, I definitely agree. The most common excuse for a lot of people is that they don’t really know of a way that they could ever use their personal domain name.
However, one major thing that you can always do with your domain name if you ever wanted to is to rank for your name searched in Google. You can do this with hardly any effort at all (unless you share the name of a very famous person) just because of the weight that most search engines place on the domain name matching the keyword exactly.
Joel
http://www.DomainSuperstar.com
Phil
I had gusterson.co.uk in the late 90s and let it drop – somehow i wrote a dissertation on online reputation management and managed to completely miss the value of domain names!!
A few years later I woke up and regged http://www.gusterson.com, and last year as I followed John Chow and Gary Vaynerchuk I came to appreciate the importance of owning your name and regged http://www.philipgusterson.com.
John Chow says he would never of used his personal name as the domain if he had have known his site was going to become a blog about making money online, but I think that he is missing the fact an individual becoming a brand is very effective.
Any dev. plans for jamiezoch.com?
Gary Taylor
I’m always annoyed by the fact I’ve been unable to get my hands on my name dot com, especially as I share my name with an ex-worlds strongest man and a worldwide musician… I only have the dot info version, and I don’t use it because I simply don’t like it. Eventually I’ll get my hands on the illusive Gary Taylor dot com…I think it is hugely important when managing your online reputation that if you want to be seen as an industry expert you at least own your name as a dot com. If people know you and your business as you, then you are a brand as much as your company name is.