Is there a way, that I am not finding, to have a vanity profile name?   On LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc I am KellCOMnet; on stackoverflow I am /users/464228/christopher-kelly.   If this is not currently available, what is the community’s thoughts on this feature?
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How can I change (or remove / reset ) my name on a site in Stack Exchange network?
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I just saw a user named: .yahoo.co.jpaqwsykcj3aulh3h1k0cy6nzs3isj  Could new users be named according to their user-number, or something other than "Unknown"? Perhaps User1234567 instead? It would be less awkward to address them in answers and comments.   Additionally, I often times have to check profiles to make sure users aren't abusing the system, since I find many of the same questions from "unknown (google)" from time to time. That, or I'll mistakenly think I've helped the user on a similar issue in the past, and assume the user has knowledge that he or she does not have.
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I am interested in changing my display name to my full name, but am concerned about losing the connective tissue in the comment threads I participated in. Because @name links do not appear to be linked or coupled to an account, I want to avoid impairing the readability of a discussion.  If I were to change my display name, does the change, in turn, update @name user references for questions/answers/comments I participated in?
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Trying to find myself on the  I run into weird results. My display name is "Erwin Brandstetter", obviously.  If I type Erwin, I find myself in the search results. If I type Branst, I find myself in the search results. If I type Erwin B or even Erwin Brandstetter, I am not found.  Tried the same with Jon Skeet or Brad Larson and others, no problem. Works either way. Tried the same on a couple of SE sites. Same effects everywhere. Here on meta, too.  Seems broken to me?
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The app keeps asking for a nickname, and I have entered dozens of names, but it keeps saying that the names aren't available. How can I find an available name?
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I just posted a comment beginning with @username, and my @username part of the comment disappeared (it was the first word in the comment).  Is there a lolcat inside the Stack Exchange database nomming on notifications? May I suggest you feed it?    P.S. I'm guessing this is a brand spanking new feature, but I can see this coming up a lot
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I just received the following in my Response pane (from ), but you can see it was meant for another user.  The @Robert line seems to have found 'Robert' in my name first, instead of Robert C. Cartaino.  I think the comment notification feature should match based on the closest match from the first character in a name (in posting order), and not just the first match found in posting order.
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It's been more than a month since I have started using . It has these users with user names in the format of "user-random number". I have observed them in some of the stack activities, most of the time asking questions.   Does the moderators create them for their own purpose. If yes what purpose do they serve?   I mean a user is free to have any user name. But it's just a hunch that such users are actually moderators. I may be wrong; just need some clarification.
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I noticed, when viewing a question on the , that my username and profile is not correct.  , and .  Something is weird here:   My profile "about" section is filled in and I have the Autobiographer badge. I certainly never manually filled in the about page there so clearly this account is connected to my main account as the profile text was filled in automatically. Yet, the username and avatar does not match. Also I have the association bonus there, so it definitely wasn't me logging in randomly, I must have been already logged in as myself network-wide when I created that account (assuming I created that account).  The "private information" section in that user900 profile is completely blank (no full name, no email address), unlike all of my other profiles. Only the "about me" is really filled in.   Points 1 + 2 = there's no reason why the username or avatar should be different.  Point 3 is a mystery.  Also I am quite sure it's connected to my account. When I log out of Literature it does log me out of the entire network. And when I log in to the network, that account on Literature shows up again.  What is going on here? Is this a bug? An accidental merge? Did I do something weird?   None of this makes any sense to me. There's no reason why I should have a profile with a generic username and gravatar on that site given the other observations.  Additional random data points:   I use the same Google login for everything here. Just to be sure I reviewed account activity for my Google account. There are no security alerts, no unrecognized devices, and no suspicious logins or other activity. I do not use the mobile apps. I sometimes use the mobile site through my phone, but I checked my phone's browser history (which I have not cleared since January) and confirmed that I have never visited that site there. Looks like I haven't cleared my desktop browser history either, and I can at least verify that I did indeed create the account on March 1st, there is a visit to the  and the first question I visited was , although it does not appear that I took any actions there. According to my browser history I edited my profile, or at least visited the edit page, on March 2 (via MSE) and March 4 (via SO). I would have applied the changes to all communities. According to  the Literature site profile was updated on March 3, two days after it was created. Not sure if this is a red herring, but these events did all happen around the same time. Yesterday, I had an unregistered account on the UX site merged with mine (long story), it seemed to happen without a hitch, not sure if that's related.
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If you Google my name, it comes up with a link to my ServerFault profile first, then StackOverflow profile, then LinkedIn, then website, etc.  I've heard it's common practice for employers to Google your name, so I'd like the results to show the most relevant information. My ServerFault account contains nothing, and there's no reason for an employer to see my Meta profile (which is further down, but still on page 1). Having those links show up in the results isn't relevant or helpful to someone searching for information about me.  What I'd like is to prevent Google (and other search engines) from spidering/showing my *Overflow site profiles except StackOverflow, or be able to control this somehow per *Overflow site.  Honestly, I don't know if this is even possible, as I'm not familiar with SEO and such. I know this kind of thing would never work perfectly, but as long as it works for the major search engines, that's all that matters.  I suppose a way around this is to simply remove my name from the profiles I don't want to show up... but that doesn't really solve the problem. For example, I could end up building a good rep here on Meta, to which I would want to attach my name for other users to see, but is an employer (or anyone else in the general public, for that matter) really going to care about what goes on here? Highly unlikely. I think employers would be more interested in things that relate to the tasks for which I would be hired. It isn't important information even though it may be ranked higher on Google.
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What is done to prevent people from changing their display name to another persons', for example Jon Skeet, and then also changing their gravatar to match too?  In comments it seems there is no visible differentiator, and the differentiator in questions and answers is just reputation and badges.  This doesn't seem to be a problem for stackoverflow, but I'm just wondering what are possible safeguards against this?  EDIT: Also it doesn't even have to be deliberate, if two people just happen to choose the same display name, and they both participate in the same question/comment thread, that would be confusing right?
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I would like to use a nickname to identify my posts, not a user + number as shown when I log in.   How do I cause the log-in process to log me in as my nickname and not the user + number id (user178183) you have assigned?  Is this perhaps 'OpenIDs are wrongly identified'?  By the way, my nicknames are intrader or mozillanerd, depending on the occassion.
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I accidentally posted a question without being logged in. Is there a way to associate that question with my account?   For more information, visit &quot;&quot; in the .   a.k.a. How can you link a registered account to a cookie-based account? a.k.a. How do I merge an unregistered account with a registered account a.k.a. Merging users a.k.a. How do I associate anonymous questions I’ve asked with my registered account? a.k.a. Is there a way to claim an unregistered user? (in case anyone searches with those terms)
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As you may know, Facebook allows users to choose a "vanity URL," allowing easy linking to one's profile. However, once set, this URL cannot be changed and this was done for security reasons, understandably.  I have a friend whose now ex-partner set the URL to be "herfirstname.hislastname" without her permission. She tried to change it after this, but to no avail.  Has anyone successfully contacted Facebook and got them to either disable the name and revert back to an ID or change the name to another?
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Currently, when registering on my site, users are presented with a first name field and a lastname field (plus an email and password field as usual). My reasoning behind this was to encourage users to use their real name, rather than make up a fake one. This seems a bit heavy handed though, so my question is basically this: What can I do to encourage a user to use their real name when registering?
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It would be nice to update the profile page from within the app.  Perhaps not many people update their profiles more frequently, but when required to do so, I would prefer to do it from the app instead of the mobile browser.
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Is it possible to publish under a nom de plume (pen name, pseudonym)? ... and still take credit for the work?   I may have a chance to publish with the professor I am working with soon and if I am on the list of authors I would like to use a nom de plume, but I would also like to use the publication to apply to graduate schools next time. Is it possible to have my cake and eat it in the case?  EDIT: Sorry for missing this out; The reason for wanting to publish under a nom de plume is that I would merely want my career to be tracked under a different name. Not to hide identity; I am perfectly fine with what EnergyNumbers was suggesting.