What standards should be used for email address names?

We generally provide aliases as [firstinitial][lastname]@, [firstname].[lastname]@, and [firstname][lastname]@. If the username (or login name) was different from all of these, we'd make an alias for that, too. We generally set the [firstname].[lastname]@ as the default from: address for outbound messages.

When it's me, I also try to snag dave@ since it's mean to make people try to spell "Mackintosh", almost nobody gets it right.

What we did was we generated a username that was 6-8 characters long. If it can it'll use [first-initial][lastname up to 7 chars]. If they had a shorter last name, it'd take more of the first name than the first initial. I believe there was only one or two people whose usernames were below 6 characters due to short names. I really didn't like this system, as it made any sort of emailing without LDAP lookups difficult.

I personally like [email protected]. Simple, easy to remember, and pretty standard throughout the email world. Alternatively, as you said, [first-initial][last name]@place.com is also widely used. It doesn't really matter as long as they're consistent, once someone has seen one they can reasonably send them to the right place with a name.

If you're still worried about it, set up a directory and configure LDAP in their address books.

I personally prefer to configure my mail server for both (this may be less fun if you're paying per email address) - but since there's no functional difference between the two, it makes everyone happy. You'll always have people who very strongly like/dislike one method or the other.