Components of an Email Address
An email address consists of three primary components, detailed as follows:
- User Name: This is the portion that appears at the beginning of the email address. It represents a name chosen and designated by the user, which can be either the user’s actual name or a pseudonym. In the case of businesses, this typically reflects the official and legal name of the company. It is essential for the user to select a unique and distinctive username that is not already in use by another individual within the same email domain.
- @ Symbol: Serving as the second component of the email address, the “@” symbol functions as a separator between the user name and the domain name that follows. The email client recognizes everything preceding the “@” as the user name and everything following it as the domain name, subsequently directing the message to the specified domain.
- Domain Name: This final part of the email address comprises two main sections. The first section designates the type of email service provider hosting the user’s email account, such as Yahoo, Gmail, or other services. The second section is known as the top-level domain (TLD), represented by extensions such as .com, .net, .edu, or .gov, among others.
Guidelines for Creating a Valid Email Address
When setting up a new email address, several guidelines should be followed, including:
- The user name in the email address must not exceed 64 characters in length.
- Only a single “@” symbol may be included in the email address being created.
- Certain special characters should be avoided in the email address, including the exclamation mark (!), hash symbol (#), dollar sign ($), percentage sign (%), ampersand (&), and tilde (~).
Modifying Your Email Name
Below are the steps to change your email name in Gmail:
- Access Gmail on your computer.
- Click on the “Settings” icon located at the top of the page.
- Select the “Settings” option from the dropdown menu.
- Navigate to the “Accounts and Import” section, or the “Accounts” tab.
- Click on the “Edit info” link found in the “Send mail as” section.
- Input the new email address you wish to display in your outgoing messages.
- Click on the “Save Changes” button to finalize your updates.