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Ask HN: How do you choose your online usernames/handles?

• monkeybutton 4y ago
  It used to be excruciatingly hard. Now I just have a few themes I dip into and take a variation of.
  • ThePrankster 4y ago
    what themes?
• mindcrime 4y ago
  Pretty simple here: I'm a big Queensrÿche[0] fan, and have been ever since a friend introduced me to their absolutely mind-blowing Operation:Mindcrime[1][2] album. The word "mindcrime" appears as a plot element in the OM story and it always stuck with me. When I got my first (dial up!) Internet account back in the mid 90's, I picked "mindcrime" as my username, and to this day I use it nearly everywhere. The few exceptions are places where somebody else had already grabbed the name. :-( In a few such cases (Slashdot, Reddit) I use a slight variation: "psykocrime". [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensr%C3%BFche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensr%C3%BFche [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation:_Mindcrime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation:_Mindcrime [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLi46MAgxqc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLi46MAgxqc
• thematrixturtle 4y ago
  Use any of a dozen random online name generators. Pick ones that have no connection to your life. Rotate regularly.
• legrande 4y ago
  Bitwarden's username generator should suffice: https://www.ghacks.net/2022/04/26/how-to-generate-unique-usernames-in-bitwarden-password-manager/ https://www.ghacks.net/2022/04/26/how-to-generate-unique-use...