HN Explorer

Ask HN: How do you choose your usernames?

9 points by behnamoh ↗ HN
Basically the title. Every time I want to sign up for websites, the hardest and most time consuming part is choosing the username. I just never got why some people add seemingly random numbers in the end. I've always wanted the username to mean something or be special in a way. There have been times when I spent almost half an hour trying to come up with a better username, esp. on websites that don't allow you to change the username in the future.

How do you come up with your usernames? And is it really important in this day and age?

See this for example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5742175/

71 comments

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taubek
For projects that are relevant to me I always use the same username. That way there is a clear link between projects that I'm working on. Otherwise any random name will do.
curiousfab
On most sites I use my amateur radio callsign (HN is an exception). It's unique and very unlikely to be taken already.
bhaney
Doesn't the FCC maintain public records of callsigns and associated home addresses? Why would you want to immediately tie your personal address to most of your online accounts?
curiousfab
I may not be under the jurisdiction of the FCC :-)

Some countries publish full records, others just names, others nothing at all.

zerohp
Would you put in your real name and address on all of those sites?
ghiculescu
I have a surname that’s hard to spell.

Not sure how future generations will do it.

cinntaile
For your children I would suggest ghiculescuv2.0
julienreszka
I just put my real name
soneil
I do try to use some variation of my real name where it's available. Especially in my younger years, I did notice that I acted like more of a dick in pseudonymous communities than when my name was attached, so I stick to just enough of my real name to curtail that.
maCDzP
I use random usernames coz of my huge thin foil hat. My username is void of meaning.

I use a password generator to create both username and password.

Kamq
> My username is void of meaning.

That's exactly what a person whose username contained significant amounts of secret meaning would say...

rsayers
First initial, last name. I was assigned this as a Unix username in 2000, and just kept using it.
waspight
I use last pass username generator
hairofadog
I wish 1Password had this. I usually just try to think of random words.

(Tangentially, are you not concerned about the Last Pass breach?)

chockablock
+1. You can still use the PW generator to achieve this but it’s a bit clunky.
waspight
I am a 1Password user as well. As mentioned in another comment, the last pass username generator is possible to use without an account on their website.

So no, I am not concerned :)

kirubakaran
My fairly unique first name used to be annoying to spell over the phone, but I appreciate it now, as I get to just use that as my username. Even getting the .com was no problem!
eddsh1994
Is Kirubakaran your first name or first and last? Is it Japanese?
karmakaze
Unrelated but reminded me of Khruangbin[0], a trio that makes wonderfully novel/familiar/haunting music. I can never get the spelling right but google always finds/fixes my attempt including some of the consonants.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4xKvHANqjk

kirubakaran
Similar to that, my favorite party trick is knowing how to pronounce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi and finding an excuse to saying that when I run into social scientists, psychologists, and the like, who all ought to know but just refer to him as the author of Flow, the psychologist with a complex name, etc
ergonaught
I agonize over significance and feel and mood and sound and uniqueness and then a few years later 1238729874983274 other people are using it no matter how obscure it is and I give up and start thinking AmbientTruffleSausage47921x is as good as any other and I weep into my beer.
dzek69
I use the same name everywhere I care for the content, if not I have a second username used for forced registrations.
AceyMan
I always try to get this username which I created not long after I got my first PC and got internet access. It's a riff on the call sign of the airline I worked with at the time.

On the rare occasion when it's been taken I've been appending 'OBE' as a suffix to obtain uniqueness.

etc-hosts
I use ISO standards certification numbers
DieBruderBauer
I think there's this interesting thing on HN where usernames that are older contain fewer and fewer characters. Find a 3-character username on HN and I guarantee you it is an old account.
ISL
I bet there are a lot more three-letter names left. 26^3 = 17576.
ISL
The random-number addition is sometimes suggested by websites as a simple way to retain personalization but bypass collisions with existing names.

"behnamoh is taken. Would you like to use benamoh37?"

Some people will tag on a birth year, address, or zip-code if their preferred name isn't available.

You'll also see people sequentially add numbers to the end if they have forgotten a password or lost access. Lost your HN access, but still want people to know who you are? How about behnamoh2? Do it again? behnamoh3. I've seen family elders do this over and over with email addresses and Facebook accounts.

LinuxBender
I just pick something that makes sense at the time with a different name and email address on each site. In this case I had been lurking on HN for a few years and finally wanted to comment on something and it seemed like there were a few other Linux tinkerers here. Oh and I appreciate the character "Bender" [1]

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln4rfYh7ng0

mawif
Some combination of the name of my first pet and my mother's maiden name.
nlitened
Your account has been debited, thank you for cooperation.
manuelkehl
Followed by the last four digits of your SSN and your zip code, right? Perfection!
wokmkanynbp
I just type in any old crap, knowing that I will eventually either delete or abandon the account, or the service it's registered on will be shut down and disappear forever.

Best not to get too attached to your online identities, or take them too seriously. They're even more ephemeral than one's physical existence.

kevinventullo
I use my first and last name as a helpful reminder that there’s no such thing as anonymity on the internet. If I have an opaque username, I may be tempted to write something I wouldn’t want to publicly stand by.
TAForObvReasons
You may write something that you publicly stand by today but not 20 years from now. You can't go back and erase what you wrote. At least with an opaque username there is an element of plausible deniability
seydor
Kaizer-soze style. 2 random words from what's on my screen at the time , to avoid doxxing myself although it will inevitably happen
Anaminus
1. Use a passphrase generator to produce two or three words

2. Smash pieces of the words together until you get something that looks good.

e.g. blurred grumble ambiguity:

- Blurlamb

- Redblig

- Leguity

Don't worry about the meaning. The meaning emerges from the identity you give it.

Extra credit: Look it up to make sure it isn't a dirty word in some foreign language. Happens more often than you think.

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gdulli
Greg Dulli is the lead singer of the Afghan Whigs. I had been to an Afghan Whigs concert the night before.
delta_p_delta_x
I was very interested in quantum mechanics as a pre-university student. Safe to say that after 4+ years of physics education, I still don't quite understand it.