About RealNames
A personal note from the founder
I've been involved with the Internet since before the launch of the first web browser. In all that time, one thing has always been clear to me: the best email address you can have is your name.
Not a string of numbers. Not your cable company. Not a handle you made up in college. Just your name. Simple, professional, and unmistakably yours.
The story behind RealNames
In the mid-1990s, a few visionary groups started acquiring surname domain names like smith.net, johnson.com, and garcia.org, understanding that these would become valuable as email became central to how we communicate. By 2006, these collections had consolidated into a single company called NetIdentity.
At the time, I was CEO of Tucows, an Internet services company I'd led since 1997. When the opportunity arose to acquire NetIdentity, I jumped at it. We ended up with over 33,000 surname domains covering about 60% of American families.
But here's the thing: Tucows had many businesses, and we never gave personal names email the attention it deserved. It sat there, quietly serving loyal customers who absolutely loved having their name as their email address — but we never quite marketed it successfully.
It was an itch I never scratched.
Why now
After 28 years as CEO, I made the transition to Tucows' board in late 2025. I knew I wanted to spend my newfound time exploring what a single person could build with AI as a partner. Not as a gimmick or an experiment — but as a genuine new way to create things.
RealNames felt like the perfect fit. The product is simple and valuable. The customers (I've seen this over two decades) genuinely love it. And the problem it solves — people being embarrassed by their email address — isn't going away.
I believe everyone who can have their name as their email address should. It's a small thing that makes a real difference in how you present yourself to the world.
I use it too
My family owns noss.org. I'm elliot@noss.org. About a dozen family members use addresses on the domain — siblings, kids, in-laws. My niece started using her address and ended up going by "Noss" in many contexts, her email becoming part of her identity.
That's the thing about a good email address. It's not just functional. It says something about who you are.
A one-person company
RealNames is just me. I handle the product, the marketing, the support, the code. I work with AI tools daily — not to replace human judgment, but to extend what one person can do. It's a different way of building, and I think it's the future for a lot of small, focused products.
If you have questions, you can reach me directly. I read every email (for now, at least).