Dear HNers.<p>I am looking to register a domain name for my personal website. Nothing fancy with respect to content; maybe just a personal blog, my amateur photographs and details about research and hobby projects. But being so late into the game, I cannot find any suitable domain name with just my first name or even first name plus last name initial with the common TLDs. Is it okay to get one of those new two letter TLDs like .ws or .at or are they looked down upon? My name plus last name is available with a .com TLD but I don't have a usual western name so it would be tough to remember with the correct spelling though it would be just ten characters hence I want to get just my first name. Plus I don't like .com for a personal page.<p>Any suggestions welcome.<p>Thanks.
First of all: who cares? Seriously, if this is for a personal website, why does the domain name matter?<p>Second of all: .at is not "a new two letter TLD"-- it is the TLD for Austria, and has been around as long as any TLD.<p>Third of all: Looked down upon by whom? Who are you trying to impress?<p>Which brings me back to: Seriously, who cares?
It's a personal page, so the name/TLD don't really matter beyond your personal preference. From what I can tell, you value having only your first name (much) higher than having a .com, so I would say you should go with one of the newer domains. If you're looking to be technically accurate, check to see if a '.me' is available; that TLD was created explicitly for personal sites.
Should be able to consolidate most of those needs with an aggregator like About.me - wordpress/blogspot for the blog, flickr/picasa for the photos, and maybe posterous for the research/hobbies.<p>Saves time in the creation/maintenance of the site and spreads your presence across the web.<p>Regardless, shunning you surname definitely won't help if people try searching for you.
What about .name (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.name" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.name</a>)?<p>Or .me if you want something shorter.