When picking a professional email address, it’s all in the name. 

As of Dec. 21, students, staff and faculty can personalize their Pitt email addresses with aliases, or an “additional email address that people can use to send email messages to you at Pitt,” according to Pitt’s Computing Services and Systems Development. Pitt announced the option  this week, following winter recess. 

Users can now display their real or preferred names, instead of the pre-determined addresses Pitt provides.

“Let’s say your name is John Smith and your current My Pitt email address is [email protected]. You might decide to add an email alias such as [email protected] or [email protected] to make your address a bit easier for others to remember,” CSSD’s website states.

Dan Menicucci, enterprise architect in CSSD, said in an email that Pitt’s ability to offer custom aliases, in part, resulted from the move to My Pitt Email and the new spam filter. 

“We hope that giving students the ability to personalize the My Pitt Email system will help encourage them to use it more,” Menicucci said. 

Various groups expressed interest in the ability to customize usernames, and “providing users with the ability to select a custom email alias seemed to be the best way to address those requests,” he said.

Users can add up to two email aliases by logging into My Pitt, clicking “Manage My Account” in the left-hand column, then clicking on “Set Email Preferences” and selecting the Email Aliases tab for detailed instructions. 

The alias, according to CSSD’s website, will not replace users’ official University email address. It simply creates a new address with which users can supplementto the old address. 

 Creating an alias will not change the users’ passwords for any Pitt services and will not interrupt incoming email to the users’ old addresses. 

Menicucci said there is not yet any available data on how many students have used the service because “we are just beginning to publicize its availability.” He added that “there have been a good number of students (and others) who have found the service and started to use it.”