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Picking a Good Username

A good username is vital to your online presence. Most people are remembered only by their username/alias online. But how do you pick a good, memorable username? In my opinion, a good username follows the following rules:

  • It only has alphanumeric characters,
  • has no leading or trailing digits,
  • is easy to pronounce,
  • and doesn’t have repeating characters that don’t make sense.

Let me elaborate on the last one. An example of a username that has repeating characters that make sense is the username “fariss”. The “ss” just feels right. An example of a username that has repeating characters that don’t make sense is the username “gymrockk”. The “kk” just feels wrong and might make your username hard to remember.

Another thing someone should take into account when picking a username is availability. It is best to have a username consistent across multiple platforms, so that people can easily find your profile just by putting it in the URL. The five main platforms a username should be available on are (in my opinion, and in no particular order):

  • Github,
  • Discord,
  • YouTube,
  • Reddit,
  • and Twitter.

You could also consider an email provider as a platform a username should be available on, such as Gmail, ProtonMail, or iCloud (e.g. <username>@gmail.com). Another thing you could consider as a platform is a .com domain name with your username.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really think of this when I chose my username, so my Twitter and Github are @tomatophu and my Reddit is u/tomatofu_.

Now you’re probably wondering: How do I come up with a username within this narrow criteria? Well, I have a few tips:

  • Choose a common word and replace a letter with a phonetic equivalent. For example, “subjunkt”. This username is available on the five main platforms, so feel free to take it.
  • Use a portmanteau of two words, such as “tomatofu”. Unfortunately, this example username is already taken on the five main platforms.
  • Use your last name. I wouldn’t recommend this if you care a lot about privacy, though.

Remember: it is totally fine to have a username that doesn’t follow this criteria. If you don’t have a username in this criteria, but you want to, you can still rebrand under a new name.

Good luck on finding a username!