(MONEY Magazine) – It's the latest craze in our office: My co-workers are registering their names as Internet domains. One man even registered a site in the name of his baby twins. So I joined the party and became mistress of my own domain.

More and more people--average folks, not just celebrities like Howard Stern and Oprah Winfrey--are staking their claims in the great domainname land rush. According to Network Solutions, one of the 135 companies dealing in domain names, consumer requests now account for 20% of its business. Register.com, another domain purveyor, has mailed out brochures declaring, "It's vital to have your own Web address as your personal access point for future communication!" If you don't, they warn, "someone else could get it first!"

Now I doubt many of us stay up nights worrying about our "personal access points." But the pitch about getting first dibs hits a nerve. Maybe owning your own name will prove valuable down the road. In the future, our personal websites (should we actually create them) may become the way we're reached by e-mail, fax or phone, no matter where we are. If Aunt Lisa wants to download the latest snapshots of the family, it's probably easier to send her to your personal domain than to some interminable address at GeoCities.

And so what if we don't create a website using our personal Web address? For some of us, having a .com after our name may be purely symbolic (as in: "If you don't have one, you're not really a member of the Internet generation"). Or perhaps we're salting away our domain name until that glorious day when we become famous. Then we'll have outmaneuvered all those star-struck fans who want to take on our persona.

Maybe $35 a year is a small price to pay to indulge our vanity--or fantasy--and even quell some paranoia. When I became the proud owner of Suzannewoolley.com, I felt I'd made a defensive move. Then Register.com oh-so-kindly suggested that I consider 30 or so variations on my name. Snap up Easysuzannewoolley.com? The thought hadn't crossed my mind.

--SUZANNE WOOLLEY