Usernames
I have been signing up for more and more web services lately. A lot of these have been through a really cool website called beta list. Since I am usually a fairly early user in most of these services, I have a pretty wide selection in usernames. I have begun to think a lot lately about usernames and their impact on my usage of the service as well as my web presence in general.
For the longest time, I used ghawk17 as my username in various services that I would register for. From gmail (way back when) through registering for twitter and tumblr a little more recently, I stuck with this username. More recently, however, I began to wonder if I should start using a more “mature” username. I started caring more about my online identity and keeping it consistent (and semi-professional). I began using greghochsprung as my name in several of the services I registered for, but that felt like a very long username to give people (plus I’d have to spell out my last name if I was speaking with someone about random web service X I thought they should sign up for). But now that I am an earlier user to most services, I can usually pick a shorter username than that and have been pondering how to keep this consistent.
I’ve come to view getting my choice username as a game. For a few months now, I’ve been trying to get the username greg. It seems like Greg is a fairly common name, and I can’t always get it as my username. I admire people with slightly less common names (like bijan or bryce), who can usually get their first name as their username. But when I can’t get greg, I need to pick something else.
One thing I started trying was the username g (or gh). That seemed like a pretty cool username to have. Instagram was the most notable service I did this with. That was a HUGE mistake. I also registered a different username to use primarily, but had logged in as g at one point on my iPhone. This has resulted in every instance of “@g” causing a push notification to appear on my phone (see below for some of them), which confused me a WHOLE lot at first (Is Instagram having problems? Why am I receiving push notifications directed to other people?).
I also have heard Dan Benjamin mention in his podcasts that he got rid of the username dan on twitter for this very reason. He was getting way too much @reply spam. Additionally, some services have a minimum length for their usernames, so g or gh may not even work in some places.
I don’t want to use ghawk17 or greghochsprung and I really can’t use g or gh, but I can’t always get greg. So, I decided recently to always get gregh as my username on any service I sign up for. I think that I will usually be early enough to a service to get it. Also, gregh is short enough for people to remember and have no difficulties spelling it if I tell it to them in passing.
Clearly, I’ve been thinking about usernames WAY too much lately. Oh well. I tend to overthink quite a few things - this one I thought I’d share. Now, if only I could get the inactive gregh name on twitter…
