OTOH, If it's a commonish name/nick, you have to endure countless incorrect emails from people who have you confused with someone else.

I don't have a particularly unique name, but I get 5-10 emails to the wrong people per week.

You could use Gmail with your own domain name.

I did end up setting up my startup domain with GMail. It made me want to make a "regular" GMail account, but I still couldn't get past the name thing.

Depends - I hate having to keep track of a thousand different usernames, so I think it makes sense to stick to one.

My name's ever so common - it's taken in all the popular domain extensions, all the major email services, most of the social sites (I got in early on Twitter!). It's a pain; I don't want to use a "nickname" and I really don't want numbers at the end of my name.

Then again, because so many people share my name, I'm barely traceable on Google which I quite like.

(It's the reason I use the startup email provider Zenbe. They had my name available. I just hope they don't go tits up!)

My name's not too common, Thomas Shaddox, but the problem is, a domain will noticably have "ass" in it. ;) I've toyed around with buying tomshaddox.com, but I really don't want to go by "Tom," but I do have tshaddox.com for now.