Sally Chow was born on September 9th. When choosing her name, we went through all the normal methods, like reading baby name books and checking out sites that list names. However, one of the things I did before even considering a name was to check to make sure the domain for the name was available. If it wasn’t, I didn’t consider it.
Am I the only one who has done this? There must be other parents out there who made sure their child’s domain name was available before taking the name. On that note, how many readers own the the domain for their name? If not, why not? There are probably millions of John Chow out in the world but only one owns JohnChow.com! 
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I never thought of that, but now that you mentioned it, I’ll probably run this check when and if I have children.
Imagine the traffic I would get from soccer fans all over the world if I had registered Ronaldo.com
It is almost her birthday. Happy early-Birthday Sally.
I need to look into by my full name domain.
Yeah and the resulting lawsuit which would have forced you to hand it over!
Ah ha! I knew getting http://www.eastwoodzhao.com would be a good idea
LOL. they will probably make you give it to him. I’ve heard most stars have done that.
I can’t see how they could win such a law suit, because that’s my name too.
But it doesn’t matter, it’s too late now.
I did that even though I don’t have any kids yet. And yes I do own my own domain name. I registered it years ago but never did anything with it until this year. It was one of those random moments and I am glad that I did. I had plenty of other domain names and I don’t know why it took me so long afterwards to actually register my name as my domain name, but finally I did. Glad I did too.
yea i also own my own name ..
You can find any name with available domain, but at least, you have to make sure it won’t be rejected by your goverment registry like this couple, named their kid superman
So John, I was wondering, other than the fact that it was available for domain registration, why else did you pick Sally. I would assume you did so for more than just that one reason. Afterall you said you went through all the baby books and other factors before landing on Sally right?
hahah. I do own my own domain name but I wouldn’t check to see if my child’s name was available as a domain! Thats pretty crazy!
Yeah I’ve owned my name domain for a couple years, but have never done anything with it. I guess I’m waiting to build up my portfolio enough to make it worthwhile.
Then again, I’ve got like 60 domain names waiting for something worthwhile
I used to own my wife’s name but I let it go back. She decided a couple of years ago that she didn’t want to blog as herself as she teaches and likes to keep her job. Myself on the other hand since I could care less, would love to own my name as my domain but sadly richardmiles.com is taken
Hmmm…off to see what else I can come up with from my name.
richardmiles.name
i bought my own domain name a good few years back. had a play with it then left it for a few years. i recently decided to use it again for my blog about property investment.
i bought my wife to be her domain name too. i may have a look for my kids now!
BTW i think you should start a “my name is john chow” group on facebook and see how many people join. i did this but got barred temporarily from facebook! details on my blog..
Maybe it’s because the name of your group could be read as:
My name is Dave….. Soooooooo
And yes, I own my own name as a domain. Wasn’t there a link train of that a while back?
one of the first things i did after my son was born was register hisname.com. you bet!
LOL i was actually thinking about that the other day. I wonder how long it will take before most of the names are taken for domains.
I own the domain for my daughter’s name.
I’ve been thinking about writing a blog about “securing your child’s digital future.” Domains, email addresses, etc. I also have her Gmail address.
What if she likes Yahoo better?
Cant say ive ever considered doing that before naming a kid.
Oh, and yes I own my domain name, although not the .com version
Yes you are, but probably the first of many.
You know you’re a computer geek when you search to see if you’re child’s domain name is available before deciding.
I’ve owned ronaldlewis.com since 1999. I rank #1 on Google for “Ronald Lewis” and #3 for “Ronald” — Trailing only former US President Ronald Reagan and Ronald McDonald.
For July, my site saw 108,000 pageviews. On average, 80% of my pages — regardless of the subject matter — rank in the Top 5-20 of Google searches.
Of course, I’m always amazed by the continued growth of my site — but few aren’t aware of who Ronald Lewis truly is. There’s certainly more than meets the eye.
and so humble too!
My name is Brian Johnson (not popular is it?
)
My daughter was born June 7th. Before she was born I was looking at domains but we didn’t find out if it was a boy or girl so I didn’t pull the trigger until the day after she was born
http://www.isabellejohnson.com
I own my domain, but I wonder what reason you would consider as important, John? Obvious uses for the domain could be of course to start a business, in case the kid becomes famous or even to publish a CV. But do you have any specific intentions for the domain?
Just curious
Christine
Unfortunately my name is fairly common (Benjamin Cook) and both benjamincook.com and bencook.com are taken.
haha im pretty sure my parents didn’t do a domain serach on my name shame really… i think ill go search see if my name is available
also i feel really privileged now that i share the same birthday as your daughter 
I have mine.
http://www.chrispund.com
No kids yet, but when I do have them I will also consider this!
I have my name as my domain and I blog there
so the domain would not be used until she knows how to type
I never wanted to use my name as a website, but I just checked and it’s not available.
It’s owned by some guy in Canada
and he’s owned it since 2000. It doesn’t expire until Sept. 2008. But it’s just a parked domain. Which means it’s probably for sale for the right price.
I have both my son’s names up and running, kind of doing a little diary for them to read when they get old enough.
http://owendavis.net
http://logandavis.net
3 and 1 years of age
J.D. that is a great idea! I think I am going to do the same thing for my kids.
I too check registered my son’s domain name even before he was born. However, I’m not sure I would have abandoned the name if it wasn’t available.
FYI – If we ever have a girl in the future, we’ve already decided on a name and I’ve registered that as well.
You never know!
I have timspangler.com and timothyspangler.com. Almost lost timspangler.com but fortunately it was just being kited.
The meteorologist and the chairman of the UK Republicans Abroad that I share my name with might be pretty irritated at me. I should convert my blog to all liberal commentary, all the time.
re is no way on earth I would base the naming of my child on whether or not the domain was available.
My last name is 13 letters long. It has two vowels, three z’s, and it has a string of 8 consonants in a row. It would be pointless to own it because nobody would ever know how to spell it.
Poland!
John, a REAL internet mogul would have done some keyword research too!
Haha!
And also registered domain names which contain mis-spellings and close matches to the original name!
Sally Chow is soooo cute (just went to the url).
I don’t have the url of my real name. I’m not in any hurry to get it – I doubt there’s any competition!
I own http://www.geofferson.com and http://www.geoffmarcy.com and I think I will do the same thing for my children as well! Have you had offers from other john chows to buy your domain? At what price (if any) would you sellout your own name?
Where’s the romance?!?
I can’t think of anything worse than growing up to find that the reason you got your name was because you’re parents grabbed whatever domain was available at the time.
Shocking!
I wouldn’t name my child like that but I do own my domain name
I haven’t registered SpudOregon.com. What’s the point? A quick Google search for “Spud Oregon” will find me top every time!
We knew what our kid’s name was going to be even before we talked about having kids…it was pretty simple. Never thought about the domain angle though, that’s hilarious and yet somehow brilliant.
I did the checking for my kids, my wife and my own name last year using GoDaddy. Sadly, most of our names were registered by others.
I noticed that those with 3 to 4 alphabet letters are almost impossible to get. Most companies use their short abbreviation as their domain names.
Not sure if I would consider the domain name when naming any child I may have. But I do have my name as a domain, I had to purchase it from a domain squatter.
Well, my surname is quite unique, so the chances are that any choice of name wouldn’t be registered.
However, some guy has registered rhyswynne.com, so I’ve had to stick with .co.uk names all my life
Cute kid, liked the one about the pin and not being asked if your girl is a boy or a girl. I always ask my friends their kids sex when I see them unless I can see them wearing all pink; now when they’re in a neutral color then I’m stuck!
My name was registered by someone else early on but they let it go. I snapped it up when I did a periodic check after registering my name with ‘jr’ at the end and realized that it was available.
Hence, mercedeslopez.com leads to my blog at blogspot or mercedeslopezjr.blogspot.com
Since lopez is such a common name there isn’t much of a chance I’ll ever get to register a domain for any future kids.
Hahaha…I didn’t even think of that! Anyway, I would make a subdomain for my child if the domain is not available.
I didn’t register my name because I hate long URL’s and simonrodrigues.com is a long URL in my opinion and thats not even my full name. But I don’t think my daughter’s URL would be taken yet, its quite a unique name.
Simon
Good one John! Now I’m going to have to register our kids domain names for when they start blogging.
On that note, I’ve registered my personal domain, gerardmcgarry.com
I Own my .COM – http://santoshP.com
initially I bought it just for mail and secure my online presence.. But later on thought it was good to test wordpress and as of now I am a half dead blogger…
hey john,
my daughter also was born 09-09-2006. i will check if my baby domain name is available or not. thanks for the input.
My names Will Smith (William Smith) so I don’t own the domain name for it.
.
Well; i dont have kids yet so it will be a while before i have to worry about it
For our kids, no, but for our family name we have several domains: http://www.malka.com http://www.malka.fr http://www.malka.dk http://www.malka.co.uk http://www.malka.co.il http://www.malka.biz http://www.malka.it http://www.malka.info http://www.malkaz.com and probably several, I’ve forgotten. We couldn’t get http://www.malka.eu which is now used by some pr*ck for spam.
Uber geekness
What about the guy who gave his own name to his child and added “2.0″…
John, I had a boy and girl name lined up for my first child and as soon as I knew what sex they were (at the 4-5 month scan when they were in the womb) I reserved the domain name. My son was born a year later and I did the same thing for him when I knew what sex he was.
In true internet style, they started receiving spam before they were born!
Don’t have any kids but probably would take that idea into consideration. I mean, who knows if my kid will grow up to be a star!
I own my full name domain. I registered it a long time ago.
My surname is pretty unknown outside of Ireland, and even here, it’s unusual so I had no worries about what to call my son. I did however register Adamocaoimh.com a few days after the birth just in case!
I didn’t get ocaoimh.com, but ocaoimh.ie and a few other tlds were free so I grabbed those instead. Of course, I have donnchaocaoimh.com although I have yet to do anything with it.
I own the domain name for my name. All that’s there right now is a blog that I never use anymore now that I started Welcome to the Blogosphere dot com. I was asked “… but …. why?” when I bought TravisHaynes.com.
I don’t know what it is, but there’s just something so satisfiable about the fact that I can now be Googled.
Haha..I never thought about it until you brought it up. Will surely register a domain with my son’s name!
Bought mine back in ’99. Always thought it was odd that I didn’t think to buy it when I first started buying domains back in ’96. Guess I really didn’t think about it then, I was on the lookout for the big money doamins like “wallstreet.com”. Too bad I never got my hands on those.
Very evil!
The first 30 to subscribe to my blog and to leave a comment on the last post will enter a draft to pick 6 links that will stay in my blogroll for 6 months!
DON’T LOSE THIS OPORTUNITY!
Also, in the following weeks our shop will be online!
Im sorry thats just wierd, though with a last name like mine every domain is available.
Is SallyCow.com still available?
I must say we all have domain names in our names, my 60 year old mom included! It’s a must I say..
I don’t own JasonPedersen.com because the domain is already taken. It expires soon… this month actually. Hopefully it won’t be renewed and I can sweep it up.
Darn, I just checked again at it looks like it was renewed today!
They will probably make you give it to him. I’ve heard most stars have done that.
well, thats a litle weird, i dont even have my domain name, how i would buy my children domains? the mine is available, but i dont have my personal blog. in the blog i have, i only talk about technology, etc. not about me. maybe its a good idea!
They will probably make you give it to him.
i have my name to but i always wanna my surname.
I checked after my youngest was born, but it wasn’t a consideration or thought during the naming process.
Good thing that my name is not popular, so I don’t have to worry about it that much.
I have also been thinking to book the domain name on my real name, but then I would rarely think to develop something on my domain name. So no worries
I also checked the domain name first before I convinced my wife of the name Nastassija.
Nope – I hadn’t thought about checking it out for my son, but I will now. I like the idea, and I think our names are unique enough that they should be available.
Too bad johnrobinson.com isn’t available for me!
I’ve been married for over a year, and I am certainly going to look at any names that we may pick for our possible future children to see if the domain name is available
A little scary… but prudent nonetheless I guess
hehe, only internet marketers would even think such a thing.