Domain availability influencing baby names: GoDaddy

New research indicates that millennial parents are prioritising the digital identity of their children.

GoDaddy conducted a study of 1000 millennial parents aged 24–38 and 1000 Gen X parents aged 39–53.

The research showed that millennials were especially aware that kids born today need to have a firm understanding of how to maintain their online presence.

In fact, 48% of millennial parents believe it is important for their child to have an online presence early in life, compared to just 27% of Gen X respondents.

However, parents of all ages were conscious of their children’s digital identity — 94% of all survey respondents reported that they plan to speak to their children about how to responsibly maintain their online presence.

The study also found that 20% of millennial parents have created a website for their children, suggesting that a website can be a helpful tool for parents to teach kids about thoughtful management of their online identity. (Of those millennial parents that created a website, an astounding 79% actually changed the top contenders for their baby’s name based on the availability of that domain name.)

The study suggested that millennials’ familiarity with the importance of an online presence might come from their own experiences growing up as digital natives.

In addition to the 20% of millennial parents who have created a website for their children, an additional 18% have not created a website for their child yet, but have considered it. The top two reasons parents cited for creating a website include future job searching (48%) and college application purposes (47%).

Some parents (37%) believe personal websites will take the place of social media, so they created a website with this in mind.

Education on how to represent oneself online is another top priority for parents, with 42% of all respondents who had created a website for their kids reporting that they intended to use it as a tool to teach their kids how to exist on the internet.

The survey results point back to a larger shift towards owning your own online presence. When asked about their own digital identity, millennial parents were nearly twice as likely to have their own domain and/or website than Gen Xers — 29% compared with 17%.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Africa Studio

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