Thanks for the replies, guys. All of you.
@ Searchsix - could have been related to the scheduled downtime.. There was recent scheduled maintenance and all registrars were not able to reg names. They may need to program a routine to die any searches if the registry is down. So that may have happened wherever you tried. Though the registrars with advanced control panels would have given you the proper notice when you tried to reg any names.
The plot thickens. I did some research on all the domains in all the renewal notices, and some were actually pointing to my server that I did not know of. Time to setup a script to log failed requests and notify me. I've been meaning to do this anyway, but finding a big batch like this certainly helps me get on the ball and do it. Though the whois info on this set of names is all about someone I never heard of.
Some of the other notices say I have 24 names expiring in the next 90 days, one said I have 447 names expiring, one said 397, and a couple of others said I have 2 names expiring. And the Dear ***, line in the email is addressed to a few different people. One even says this: Dear transferedaway_names, ...