How to create a professional email address (2024)

An email address is the most fundamental form of your online identity. It's your personal gateway to the world - allowing you to send and receive communications, create an account on various websites or apps, receive newsletters from interesting sources and apply for jobs.

It’s pretty common to see interesting email addresses that were created several years ago whilst the users were in high school or college, such as "cooldude86@aol.com", "crazypunkmaster999@yahoo.ca" or "anna2cute@msn.com". However, these identities are a terrible idea when you use your email account for anything remotely professional. Whether you’re scouting for a job, running a business or building your network, you absolutely need a professional email address.

A good professional email account used in a resumé or on a business card makes a good impact without sticking out as an eyesore. While there’s no law that’s stopping you from using your high-school email account, it’ll almost certainly do you more harm than good and is very likely to be dismissed by recruiters and hiring managers. In this article, we’ll explain what makes for a good professional email address format and also give you some great ideas and examples of how to create a professional email address.

How to Create a Professional Email Address?

There are several email service providers available on the internet today that will let you sign up for a professional email address. While you can create a professional email account on services like Gmail, iCloud, Outlook and Yahoo, there are some other fantastic options like FastMail, ProtonMail, Zoho Mail as well.

Many of these email service providers offer paid plans that allow the use of a custom domain name, which is especially useful when you’re running your own business. Using a professional email address with a custom domain name gives your business a lot more clout. Scroll down a bit to read more about using a custom domain for a professional email address.

Tips to Create a Professional Email Address

Although creating a professional email address isn’t a tough task, here are some things that you should keep in mind:

Keep it Short — Don’t make your professional email address too long. If you have a very long name, use a shorter version that’s easy to recall.
Make it Pronounceable — There will be times when you’ll have to read your email address out loud to someone, either on the phone or in person, so you should try to make your professional email address as pronounceable as possible.
Avoid Diacritics — Even if the spelling of your full name uses a Diacritic or accents, you should avoid using the in your email address.

Professional Email Address Format

The most standard and recommended form of a professional email address is of course the firstname.lastname@domain.tld format. But there are some other ways you can get a professional email address, such as:

firstnameinitial.lastname@domain.tld
firstnameinitiallastname@domain.tld
firstname.lastnameinitial@domain.tld
firstnamelastnameinitial@domain.tld
firstname@domain.tld
lastname.firstname@domain.tld

You can also use an underscore to separate the names, although a period is more commonly used these days. Generally, it is best to avoid numeric characters in your professional email address, but you can use it if the situation demands it.

Professional Email Address Examples

Here are some good examples of professional email addresses that you can take inspiration from. Although there is no fixed set of rules to follow, it’s recommended that you follow one of these formats. Let’s take the example of two imaginary persons — Jason Smith and Jessica Graham-Cumming

jason.smith@domain.tld
jasons@domain.tld
jsmith@domain.tld
smithj@domain.tld

jessicagrahamcumming@domain.tld
jessica.gc@domain.tld
j.grahamc@domain.tld
jgcumming@domain.tld

Using a Custom Domain for a Business Email Address

If you’re running a successful business or just starting off with one, it is considered a good idea to use a custom domain name for your email account. A custom domain name instills confidence in your prospective customers that you are serious about your business and not some fly-by-night popup.

There are several good email providers that offer Business Email hosting. Google’s G Suite offering is arguably the most popular business email service, along with Microsoft’s Office 365, FastMail, Zoho Mail, etc.

If you have several departments within your company, your business email address format will be along the lines of:

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