How do you come up with a better username?

I wish I had a better username. Thankfully I don't have one that's so bad because I was 10, like all the N0_scope420xx out there. How do you come up with a good username? I just can't do it. I'm supposed to be a creative person but names... completely blank. How should I go about thinking of one? How would you do it? What makes a good or bad username?

I feel like it's something a lot of people struggle with so hopefully we can all learn something.

I thought of a character that I thought was cool then put it into a (LotR) elvish name translator. That became my username. I think the most important thing is that it is a single name, no underscores or many MidNameCaptilisation. Clarification: This is not because it would look bad (I think it can do though) but because it is can be very annoying to type in on a phone if you are a slow typer like me or your phone automatically adds spaces or corrects stuff (phone keyboards confuse me a little).

A 2-digit number at the end is understandable. Never an explicit reference, might subliminally associate yourself with the reference over years of staring at and typing out your username.

I pretty much have the same advice as Cirdain. Go through some baby name websites (plenty of those online) and see if you can get some inspiration. Try to avoid taking inspiration from something that might not last or you won't be into in the long run and avoid weird symbols and such.

If all else fails you can try going with your real name or some variation on it but I am definitely not a proponent of the idea that people should just use their real names everywhere. Not only is it very hard to do with some names (compare something like "Ryan Davis" to "Apichatpong Weerasethakul") but not all of us want to be that open with our private information online either.

I shortened mine. I mainly go by Adequate now online. Can't change it here because some user has it.

AlisterCat is great username, I wouldn't worry too much about it :)

My advice is this: go to this site, select 2, then press "Generate" until you've got something you like. It's almost certainly going to be unique (though some googling never hurt), no underscores or numbers, and it's gonna be memorable. I just got "WorldPoet" on my second try, and now I'm considering switching my username everywhere...

Mine was from the Deus Ex recut video, "electronic old men, running the world." But then some nerdlinger on Jeff's tumblr used that name and asked him a bunch of dumb bullshit about Sonic, and not wanting to be mistaken for them I went with Atomic Old Man.

I guess my advice is just take something that has some meaning to you, be it a funny thing you latched onto or something more meaningful.

I've gone through variations of Tacitus (I studied that eejit far too much when I was at school) since the web was in short trousers but when I got an XBL account I added my actual name to it.

"Casserole Dancer"

Yep, that'll do for me!

@cirdain: I sort of disagree with no middle name characterization, as long as it is done correctly.

My username on XBL and PSN is the first letters of my name (2,2,3), which I think looks fine: RyMiBos

But you are right that something like nOsCoPe420 looks bad.

@dwigtk: Oh, I clarified why I think there shouldn't be many captilisation now :)
nOsCoPe420 would be annoying to type on a phone.

I just use my initials and the day of my birth. It's always some iteration of that because it means something to me, it's simple, and isn't just random. My PSN name sucks for this reason since I made it when I had no real user names to stick with and I wanted to hurry so I could play games, which was a dumb idea.

@gkhan said:

Thank you. My problem is that it just looks like I took my name and added cat to it, which is lame. It comes from my childhood nickname Ali Cat, like an alley cat. But then I stopped going by Ali and AlisterCat doesn't work as a pun or anything. It's definitely not a bad name but I would like something a little more interesting.

I just hit randomise when I was first signing up for Xbox Live and Pompouspizza made me laugh out loud so I went with that.

I've used this or some form of it (with or without the "sama") since my high school Japanese class where it was my name. Teacher thought it was a funny name since I was a 6 foot 5 inch tall white guy.

More then a few times I was really close to just saying screw it and start using my real name for my screen names. I don't really care if it gets out there, if anyone tries hard enough they can find everything on everybody, and I'm not a significant person so I doubt it would harm me.

It took me months of careful thought and planning.

@mike: I feel like you used to have a different username early in giant bomb. Am I crazy?

This is my first ever username, i made it so i could play Age of Empires on MSN Zone :P, it's pronounced sick-a-me but people often say "chick-amay", an eastern european guy once called me "sick-a-hem" which became an inside joke among my friends.
It's creation is kinda personal to me so i can't go into it, it's a series of words combined which meant a lot at a specific time in my life, but on the surface it sounds kinda cute, i think of it like "sycamore", like the tree, it's also always available whenever i need to register a username :P.
Back in CS1.5's heyday i created a clan under the name _PeNgUiNs_ ... i know, i know. To establish myself as the head of the clan i changed my username to Lord, which i continued to use for years before i returned back to cikame, i also very very briefly went by the name Trout Man.

I think AlisterCat is a pretty good username. I recognize you in threads because of it.

I'm really bad at making up names (or anything else spontaneous/impulsive), so I mostly use a couple of names I picked randomly ages ago. In games at least, my username has been the same for a very long time. It's just a nick I got because different people would shorten my name to Tobb or Robb kind of randomly in real life. 2+2=username?

Or I name things off of programmer syntax. My Path of Exile characters are named shit like, TobbScionSummoner and TobbRangerTwoHand. Amusing to me, but people hate typing that shit out to add me as a friend.

@alistercat: You're not crazy, it used to be XxsNiPeRxx420xX

Combine your first name and surname. I used to be Chavtheworld until I thought of this name. The only downside is it's such a common word that it's taken on some services already (looking at you egg-person who has my Twitter handle...)

Mine is a combination of what people call me a lot ("kind") and my educational pursuit of becoming a mechanical engineer ("[en]gineer"). Comes out to "kind[gineer]" and rolled off the tongue. I've stuck with, but have noticed people seem to have used it lately in some online games. Frustrates me to no end. So I ended up coming up with something else in that situation which is still "kind" and "mk2" (Mark II) as a "generational" thing.

EDIT: Maybe take "ali" to google and see if there are any words that pique your interest that maybe contain Ali? Then try to combine with other words (if the former doesn't satisfy you) until you come up with something that resonates with you. Some examples are: ALIgn, ALIve, ALIen, or InvALId.

I used to call myself Flan is good415 because flan is my favorite dessert. When I got older, I switched to SFW44, SF is my hometown, and my first name starts with a W. 44 is just a random number.

There are two parts to my username and they are somewhat related. The main part, Sphynx, came about because back in 2005, a friend said I looked like Vinnie Jones' character, The Sphinx, in Gone in Sixty Seconds when we met up for drinks. I don't know why I spelled it with a y, but I did and it stuck as a nickname. The other part, the rank, which is currently sergeant, came from my rank in the US Marine Corps. It was originally corporal, the rank I was at the time, but I got a promotion a couple years later and changed it to sgt, the rank it will remain since I am no longer in the USMC and that was the rank I got out as.

My username literally comes from a random suggestion that showed up when creating my Xbox Live account something like 9 years ago, which I found funny and have stuck with ever since.

@arbitrarywater: I loved the Xbox gamertag generator. A friend and I would just sit around and laugh hysterically at some of the suggestions.

I just look at what's wrong with other people's names and don't do those things.

...unless it's xXSmokeDogg420Xx. That one is pretty dank.

I think you already came up with a good one. Just use BetterUsername.

I have a better username for you: Sandwich Assassin.

That one is free. You can have that one.

Not that I'm any kind of expert on the subject or anything but, as others have noted, I think you've already got a fairly memorable username at the moment.

It's not too much of a mouth-full. It doesn't seem particularly offensive or overly cheesy. Plus it's one of the names I always instantly recognize on here.

But if it helps at all, the criteria I used for coming up with mine was that I wanted something that not only reflected my long-time nickname, but also had a link to both gaming and graphics. Hence the play on "Whack-a-mole". I also get hit a lot in games!

@pompouspizza: my GFWL was SlewedGoblin + a number apparently. I remember logging in to play dark souls, and i was like huh.. this is my account? I chose that name? really?

My actual username stems from Starcraft / Warcraft , but i wanted it to make sense in other games as well. As a RTS-player, you're one guy controlling an army. If you're playing a shooter, a high k/d/a can make it seem like you do the work of an army by yourself. The extra Y is there for stylepoints (and to get rid of all the other onemanarmy's)

If i had to make a new name, i would probably pick a funny sounding name. DootDoot, TangoMango , BeepBoop, WrongSongJohn or HootyTooty or something.

The username I used on AOL when I was a kid was just straight up awful. I think it was XxDeRaNgEdKiDxX or something.

I think first of all it's recognition. Something that both others and yourself will recognize. From there it's more your own personality. Do you like cats? Is it taken? Is it likely to be taken on new sites? And then you play with it. For example, There's no original Xpgamer. I just liked the idea of sarcastically putting up a seven that made it seem more generic to the style of usernames when I created it. Over time some people began to recognize me from it and so I keep it. Sometimes I feel awkward about how generic it is and sometimes it amuses me. Also I like that sometimes people consider it a windows Xp-7 skipping over vista joke. Also don't overthink it I guess, cause it's not like you're making a career decision and you can make a new one later.

When I was making a Battle.net account I was too lazy to come with a name, so I used the random name generator that it gives. After about five minutes of clicking I came across GhostPants. I added the "u" to the end of the name because it rolls of the tongue off better.

I think most usernames are pretty dumb, which is the reason why it's so hard to pick one that doesn't suck. The world would be a better place if everyone just used their name.

I didn't.

I don't go for "fun" as much these days, I just use my first name; it's usually not taken and it's easy for me to remember when it comes to signing in.

Not relevant but maybe interesting: in some games with a progressive online element like MMOs it can be fun to score a name you know others want. Like in Warframe on PC I got the name Ghost, and my wife got Star. People also often want to buy them and similar names for actual money, which is kinda crazy. As an example, my wife financed a trip from the US to Norway by selling famous Pokemon names in a MMORPG. Charizard alone scored her $500usd.

For me it was simple. Just chose a name based on a great veteran and politician I admired in my youth.