What’s in a (domain) name?

I registered oconnor.cx while in college in the late 90s. .cx is the cc TLD of Christmas Island, a protectorate of Australia. Of course, I have no connection whatsoever with the island. I’m sure it’s a lovely place, but realistically I’m unlikely to ever visit.

I went with a .cx domain simply because oconnor.cx was actually available and .cx domains were free back then. (Never underestimate the appeal of free things to college students. I wasn’t the only one at Rose to get one—Dan and Jerod each had one, IIRC, and Ted still has his.)

I’ve been contemplating migrating off of oconnor.cx to something else, off and on, for many years now. Partly due to the aforementioned lack of connection with Christmas Island, partly because of .cx’s association with that other thing which shall not be named, but mainly because it’s not a commonly understood or recognized TLD. When giving my email address over the phone, I have to clarify what I said more often than if it were a .net, a .org, or whatever.

I registered oconnor.family as a possible replacement a while ago, but have never felt compelled to move to it. People are more likely to get it right when I say it over the phone, which is nice, but I don’t care for how gimmicky it sounds. I mean, it’s not as bad as .biz, I guess. But I’ve been online a long time; using one of the new-fangled TLDs just doesn’t feel right.

I also hold {oconchuir,nichonchuir}.net, each a decolonized variant of my surname, but no one would ever spell them correctly. And I’ve got two IDNs: {オコーナー、康特蘇}.net, my name in Japanese and Chinese. All fun, but none a good solution to the over-the-phone problem.

I’ve actually wired all of these up: theresa.oconnor.family, treasa.nichonchuir.net, 康特蘇.net, and テリーサ.オコーナー.net all point at this website. But the search for the ideal replacement domain name continues.