Choosing a domain name for your portfolio

Your portfolio's address appears on your resume, your email signature and every profile you link from. A clear, name-based address is easy to remember, easy to type and looks professional. A messy one can make a strong portfolio feel less trustworthy before anyone sees it.

This guide covers your options, from the free address your portfolio platform gives you to registering your own domain, and how to pick a name you won't regret.

Two kinds of address

When you publish a portfolio, you'll usually have one of two kinds of address.

A platform address

Most portfolio builders give you an address on their own domain, either as a subdomain (yourname.example.com) or as a path (example.com/yourname). It works immediately, needs no setup and costs nothing extra.

The trade-offs:

• The platform's name is part of your address.
• If you ever move to a different platform, the address changes and old links break.
• Your preferred name may already be taken by someone else on that platform.

Your own domain

A custom domain is an address you register yourself, like yourname.com, and then point at your portfolio. You rent it from a domain registrar, usually renewing every year.

The benefits:

• It's yours. If you change platforms, you point the domain at the new site and every link you've shared keeps working.
• It's shorter and looks more established.
• You can often use it for a matching email address.

The trade-offs are a yearly renewal cost, a small amount of setup and the responsibility of remembering to renew.

Which one should you choose?

There's no single right answer. A simple way to decide:

• Start with the platform address if you need a portfolio quickly, you're still experimenting, or you're a student testing the waters. You can always add a custom domain later.
• Get your own domain if you're freelancing, building a long-term professional presence, or plan to put the address on business cards and printed materials where a broken link would be costly.

Many people do both: launch on the platform address, then connect a custom domain once they're happy with the site. If you go that route, update your links everywhere when you switch. The guide on where to share your portfolio has a checklist of places to update.

Picking the name itself

Whichever route you take, the name part matters most. Your own name is almost always the best choice for a personal portfolio.

Start with your full name

Try these in order until you find one that's available:

1. Your full name: mayaokafor.com
2. First initial plus last name: mokafor.com
3. Name with middle initial: mayajokafor.com
4. Name plus your field: mayaokaforphoto.com or mayaokafordesign.com
5. Name plus a short word like "studio," "works" or "hq": mayaokaforstudio.com

The examples above use a hypothetical person. Check each option against these questions:

• Can someone spell it correctly after hearing it once?
• Is it the name you use professionally?
• Is it reasonably short?
• Does it still make sense if your job title changes?

Be careful with your field in the name

Adding your profession, as in option 4, helps when your name is common. It also ties the address to your current job. If you might move from photography to video, or from design into product management, a field-specific address could feel dated in a few years. A neutral word like "studio" or simply your name ages better.

Business names for freelancers

If you're building a freelance business with a brand name, you might use that instead. Just remember that people searching for you will often search your personal name. Make sure your name appears clearly on the site either way.

Choosing an extension

The extension is the part after the dot. A few practical points:

• .com is the most familiar. People often type it by default, so if your name is available as a .com, it's a safe pick.
• Country extensions, like those for the UK, Canada or Germany, work well if you mainly work in one country and want to signal that you're local.
• Newer general extensions exist for many fields and words, such as ones for design, portfolios, photography or personal sites. They can be memorable and make an otherwise taken name available. They may be slightly less familiar to some people, so say the full address clearly when you share it out loud.
• .me and similar personal-sounding extensions are common for individual sites.

Renewal prices vary between extensions and registrars, and some are priced higher after the first year. Check the renewal price, not just the first-year price, before you buy.

Say your domain out loud to a friend and ask them to type it. If they hesitate over the spelling or the extension, consider a simpler option.

Things to avoid

A few choices regularly cause problems:

• Hyphens. maya-okafor.com is easy to mistype as mayaokafor.com, and hyphens are awkward to say aloud. Use one only if the hyphen-free version is unavailable and you're comfortable explaining it.
• Numbers. mayaokafor92.com raises questions: is it "92" or "ninety-two"? It can also hint at your age, which you may not want to share.
• Swapped or unusual spellings. Replacing letters to get around a taken name makes the address harder to remember.
• Jokes and nicknames. Something that's funny among friends may read differently to a hiring manager.
• Very long names. Anything over about twenty characters before the extension is hard to fit on a business card and easy to mistype.
• Trademarks. Avoid company or product names in your domain, even as a fan. It can cause legal trouble and confuses visitors.
• Accidental words. Write the full address out in lowercase and read it slowly. Words can run together in unexpected ways.

Practical tips once you've chosen

• Register it yourself, in your own name, with an email address you'll keep long-term. Avoid letting someone else hold it on your behalf.
• Turn on auto-renew and keep your payment details up to date. A lapsed domain can be registered by someone else, and your old links would then point to their site.
• Turn on any privacy option your registrar offers for the public registration record, if you don't want your contact details listed.
• Connect it to your portfolio following your platform's instructions. Changes can take a little while to take effect, so don't panic if it doesn't work instantly.
• Check that both versions work, with and without "www."
• Update every placement of your old link once the new one is live, and keep the old platform address working if you can, so older links still lead somewhere.

A quick decision checklist

1. Do I need a portfolio live today? Use the platform address for now.
2. Is my full name available as a .com? Take it.
3. If not, is a short variation available? Try initials, a middle initial or a neutral word.
4. Would a country or field extension suit me better?
5. Is it easy to say, spell and type?
6. Have I checked the renewal price and turned on auto-renew?

Putting it together

The best portfolio address is your own name, spelled the way people expect, with an extension that's easy to remember. A platform address is perfectly fine to start with, and a custom domain is worth it once you're building something long-term, because it stays yours even if your site moves. Avoid hyphens, numbers and clever spellings, and renew on time. A clear address also helps people find your portfolio in search, and it pairs well with a strong headline and tagline. Folitox AI lets you start on a shareable link and connect a custom domain later if you want one.