Ten years ago I tried to buy my last name, keenan.com Another Keenan owned it. He refused an offer of $5,000. I wouldn’t pay more for it. He has since sold it to a company called Keenan. I suspect I will never own my last name. That bums me out. Jim Keenan is also owned by someone else, although it’s an individual. I suppose, for the right price, I could have jimkeenan.com.

I don’t own my name and I don’t like it.

I think it is critical we own our online brand and that includes our names. I have bought my two daughters names and will be buying my, soon to be arriving, third daughters as well. I am securing their Facebook pages, their Twitter accounts and more. Will they use them? Who knows? But if they do, they will have their names.

Names are becoming a market. We can share names offline. We can’t share names online. User names and web domains are acquired on a first come, first serve basis. Once gone, they are gone forever. Depending on your name it could be very expensive to get after the fact. If your name is John Williams, expect to pay big. Deshawn Breznican, on the other hand, will probably be available for a while.

In a world were our online presence is the biggest asset we have, owning our names will be one of the critical investments we’ll need to make.

Have you invested in your name yet? The longer you wait, the more expensive it will be.

I wonder if we will see more Deshawns, Chantels and Matravius’s in the coming years. That would certainly solve the problem.

If I can’t get jimkeenan.com maybe I’ll change my name. How many Matravius Keenan’s can there be?