Over the last month I have noticed several bloggers have switched from free hosting and bought their own domains. Often times they’ve bought their own name (ie. Kat Argonza dot com, Ryan Paugh dot com etc). I bought mine in November 2008 for my Birthday because I felt it was important for me to own my own name on the Web.

Your Name is your biggest name brand

When your parents are naming you, they’ve got something in mind - if they name you “Baby [last name]” they probably wanted you to be a child forever. If they named a little girl with an androgynous name or a boy’s name, they wanted her to have certain masculine traits. If there’s a flowery French name there was likely some thought as to how that Princess would be perceived.It goes the same for ethnic names, chances are they wanted their child to embody certain aspects of their culture and forever have that as a part of them. If they wanted you to be a professional, they probably had a name on a door, or a dignified signature in mind.

You can change your name

Penelope Trunk over at Brazen Careerist has changed her name several times over. How she got to that name was pretty interesting and a lesson in personal brand.

My real name is Kathleen Elaine E. Argonza, my first name is actually Kathleen Elaine! That’s what it says on my passport. It takes forever to fill out any admissions forms or legal forms, especially if it also requires bubbling in the scantron. The points you get on the SAT for just getting your name right? I earned those, damn it!

Kathleen Elaine very flowery, very Anglo and very pretty, it’s also incredibly unlike me. Kathleen Elaine is not a Tough Girl name, so I eventually shortened it to “Kat”. At one point it was simply K. but people continuously asked me what K stood for. I also have a sister who’s name shares my initials. When mail comes in for someone with my last name and initials, no one knows if it belongs to her or me.

I basically eased into the Kat name, which seems more grown up than my high school nickname - Katie. Anything with an “-ee” sound ending just seems to be too cutesy for a grown up.

Own your Domain

If you want your name to be your brand (it’s particularly useful for writers/artists) then you need to own your domain. If you don’t, there might be a namesake out there that will decide to swoop in and pick it up. Then their work will be represented by that name.

There’s little chance of someone out there having my name, my last name being fairly uncommon, but when I bought Kat Argonza, it was a commitment to my brand, my name, my work. It also meant that I could not blog under any veil of anonimity! A lack of anonimity means that you can be held accountable, which might be one of the first moves towards turning into a real pro.