WILKOMMEN - BIENVENUE - WELCOME

This is the official Andrea site - a website for all Andreas, Andrea admirers, haters and wannabes out there.

It's a bit of a silly concept really, but no more so than a whole lot of other websites out there in cyberspace!

Chances are that you found us while looking for information about a certain Andrea, or maybe you googled you own name (go on - try it!) or perhaps you were looking for a free dessert recipe, e-card or graphic (if so, then click on "free" in the menu).

Now that you are here - why not take a few minutes to look around, visit our store for official Andrea gear or add a link to our links page.

We will soon have info on famous and infamous Andreas - male, female, past and present. There's also lots of free stuff to download and fun stuff to read. There's also a blog for the site and once we work out how to get it to feed directly to the site we'll be be able to put updates on the site.

What's in a name?

So how and why are we the "official" Andrea site? And who determines such things?

Well, as far as we know there is no body that makes a website "official" - in fact, a lot of the time you can just buy the domain name - which is what we did. When I was buying a domain name for one of our stores from godaddy I was prompted to buy my own name as a domain name just in case someone else did. Why someone should want www.myfullname.com I have no idea. After all, I'm no Britney, Nicole or Kylie. However, it did get me to thinking - why not buy www.andrea.com and start an Andrea appreciation website (like you do LOL). So I typed in andrea.com but godaddy advised me that someone else out there has it already (and .info, .net etc). But I was given a list of alternative choices: theandrea.com - which sounds too much like the Donald for my liking, or myandrea.com or bestandrea.com (but that would be setting up an expectation that would be too hard to live up to) and decided upon officialandrea.com because, well it just sounds so silly. After all what makes a site "official" if you can just pay $11 for the name?!

Not much about me

Out of habit I was going to have an "about me" page - most of the websites that I have worked on have been for stores or organisations or events so it makes sense to have some information about the site owners. However, to be perfectly honest, when I wrote down all my hobbies and my profession plus family status etc I realised how boring it all sounded - or at least if you pictured the stereotypes from those categories. And you don't really need to know much anyway. Obviously I like designing websites (but am too lazy to learn to do it properly, hence the rudimentary layout and lack off CSS) and my other current favourite pastime is making t-shirt designs to sell in my stores. I love my computer and my fast connection...

My thoughts on the name Andrea

I've always had a love-hate relationship with my name.

Andrea is not a common name in Australia. At school I was always the only Andrea except for one year in high school when there was an Andrea in a higher year. Even in my professional life I've rarely worked with another Andrea and have never had one as a friend. It actually feels strange when I meet another Andrea and I have to "share" my name with them or call them by "my" name.

I didn't much like my name as a child and longed to have some other name - Rachael was my favourite for a long time, followed by Chloe as I grew older. However I did like having an uncommon name and not being one of five Michelles, two Fionas and numerous Karens at school. I've been known as Andy at different stages of my life, although never at school or work. As an adult I quite like my name - maybe I'm just used to it!

COMING SOON!

• A list of famous and infamous Andreas throughout the ages
• Andrea in the news
• The meaning of Andrea - prevalence through time

Andrea in Chinese characters- source