New York – Besides leaving the hospital with a birth certificate and a clean bill of health, baby Mila Belle Howells got something she won’t likely use for several years: her very own Internet domain name.
Likewise newborn Bennett Pankow joined his four older siblings in getting his own Internet moniker. In fact, before naming his child, Mark Pankow checked to make sure “BennettPankow.com” hadn’t been claimed.
“One of the criteria was, if we liked the name, the domain had to be available,” Pankow said.
A small but growing number of parents are getting domain names for their young kids, long before they can do more than peck aimlessly at a keyboard.
It’s not known exactly how many, but the practice is no longer limited to parents in Web design or information technology.
They worry that the name of choice might not be available by the time their babies become teens or adults, just as someone claimed the “.com” for Britney Spears’ 11-month-old son before she could.
The trend hints at the potential importance of domain names in establishing one’s future digital identity.
Think of how much a typical teen’s online life now revolves around Facebook or News Corp.’s MySpace. Imagine if one day the domain could take you directly to those social-networking profiles, blogs, photo albums and more.
“It is the starting point for your online identity,” said Warren Adelman, president of registration company Inc., which sells basic domain name packages for about $9 a year. “We do believe the domain name is the foundation upon which all the other Internet services are based.”
Hundreds of companies sell domain names with suffixes like “.com,” “.org” and “.info,” which individuals can then link to personal websites and e-mail accounts. Parents visit one of those companies’ websites, search for the name they want and, if no one else has claimed it, buy it with a credit card.
There’s no guarantee that domain names will have as central a role in online identity. After all, with search engines getting smarter, Internet users can simply type the name of a person into Google.
“Given the pace of change on the Internet, it strikes me as a pretty impressive leap of faith that we’re going to use exactly the same system and the same tools … 15 to 20 years from today,” said Peter Grunwald, whose Grunwald Associates firm specializes in researching kids and technology.
Besides providing an easy-to- remember Web address, the domain name makes possible e-mail addresses without awkward numbers – as in “JohnSmith24,” because 23 other John Smiths had beaten your child to Google Inc.’s Gmail service.
Parents not ready to commit or knowledgeable enough on how to buy a domain, though, are at least trying their luck with Microsoft Corp.’s Hotmail or Gmail.
Melissa Coleman of Springfield, Mass., grabbed Hotmail addresses for her two kids. She said the kids’ grandparents occasionally send e-greeting cards to those accounts, and she sends thank-you notes for gifts in her child’s voice.
She said she logs in at least once every month to keep the accounts active and plans to save all messages for when her children get older.
Domain name owners have a variety of options to have their personal sites hosted, typically for free or less than $10 a month. They include baby-geared services like and .
There are downsides to all this: An easy-to-remember domain also makes a child easier for strangers to find. Chances are one only needs to know a child’s name and add “.com.”
GoDaddy and many other registration companies offer proxy services that let domain-name buyers register anonymously.
Otherwise, the person’s name, address and other contact information are publicly searchable.
