Someone else using your username

A few days ago I was on yahoo.com trying to create a Yahoo Mail account. When asked what I wanted my username to be I automatically tried to make baconbits33@yahoo.com however I immediately received a red message below the bar where I entered my preferred username saying "Sorry, username is already being used". Of course this isn't a big deal since it's merely an email, so I just went with my name. However I then began to recall all the websites where baconbits33 was already being used; Youtube, Twitter, and PSN. Now it may seem dumb but I've been using this username since I was about 7 when I created my first email account, even my friends referred to me as "Baconbits" in both my senior and junior year at high school. So naturally I do feel like the username "baconbits33" is mine, and become curious as to who else uses it. Now many people might consider that petty and slightly absurd, however if you take a step back, look at all the hours you've devoted to your online gaming account and how many of your online friends refer to you as that username. I have heard many of my friends use their gamercards in their bank account identity. And maybe some people are like me, they simply grew up with that one username and have a slight nostalgia towards it.

I'm just wondering, has anyone else tried to create an account somewhere and found that someone else was using their username? And do you feel almost like your username is just a bit synonymous with your identity?

Edit: Sorry for any grammatical mistakes.

nope! the only time that ajayraz is taken is when i've already made an account on a site, but forgot i did. as for being synonymous with my identity, absolutely. it's my name.

Baconbits is probably so common that people just started adding numbers to it, I'm sure there's a good number of people with the name Baconbits(number).

Eh, the most trouble I have with mine is when there's a 15-character limit on usernames. I refuse to use "azn" to make it fit.

I used BaconBits because i couldn't think of something better, it's not that unique.

Edit: I should add that if I knew someone else was using it, I probably would have picked something else.

@WilltheMagicAsian: How about Masian as a combination of Mage and Asian?

@baconbits33: I used to put a lot of time and effort into coming up with unique names anytime I needed to make a user or character name. It's paid off, I'm the only Toxeia on the interwebs

@ShadowConqueror said:

Baconbits is probably so common that people just started adding numbers to it, I'm sure there's a good number of people with the name Baconbits(number).

That's what my conclusion was, after all, who doesn't like bacon? hehehe... Seriously who?

Although I did meet a croutons66 once, all we needed was a lettuce99 and a ranchdressing12 and we would of had ourselves one hell of a conversation.

Haven't had the problem yet. If I actually saw someone using my username, it'd be as annoying as walking by a clone of myself out on the street. There can only be one.

I like to think that my screenname is unique to me and me alone. I use it for virtually everything; it's me, down to a T, and always has been. I'd be a little disappointed if someone else ended up using it. Especially since apparently my Steam account isn't working under that name. Hmmm.

Used to happen all the time when I used to incorporate things I was a fan of into my name. Hasn't happened in a long time, though.

When I signed up for this site I considered using a different username since I found out there was already a guy named "TwoOneFive", but decided against it since I've become pretty attached to this handle over the years. :P

a month ago, i googled my username. I have done this once in a while out of curiosity, to my surprise some guy on youtube in may picked that name. When i went to the video i thought i heard a kid. Something also lead me to sign into twitter (something i rarely use) to see the same super2j from youtube messaging me about me having super2j. He asked me when i thought of using it and that he saw i had picked out the name back in 2009 or something. I explained to him that i started using that name in 2003-2004 when some dude had superj in some online free to play. The game was either "war rock" or one of the games from ijjji.com. Now, if i had wanted to, i would have had super2j on youtube as well when i created my 2 accounts on there, both before this new kid did, i had at the time decided that i should vary my name.

I will say this. i had always been surprised super2j is as available as it is. I thought it would be more common. But when this kid talked to me about how it is HIS name, i totally started getting defensive and annoyed. Of course i wasnt lashing out at him or anything, i took solace in the fact that in general i have never had a problem with this name, so there is nothing to worry about. i have been super2j for almost 10 years. And one of these days, i will move on from it. there are a couple of names that i have picked up that i enjoy better. But it will be a while from now when i finally drop it.....maybe never.

No one calls me a teabag in real life....  

So how did you get the nick-name bacon bits in real life? My nickname was always "soup" because my last name is Campbell, so I am curious as to where you got yours :P

@ccampb89 said:

So how did you get the nick-name bacon bits in real life? My nickname was always "soup" because my last name is Campbell, so I am curious as to where you got yours :P

Well my favorite food is bacon, however I love to cook, and not like poorly like spend 15 hours in the kitchen cooking a meal that cost me around $100 to get the ingredients for, and 2 days for the meat to marinate in a wine that took me 4 days to find. However all my favorite meals to cook for when I had friends come over always had bacon bits, and I'd always be going to the store to buy bacon to cook with, and I always used ham and bacon grease to cook all the omelets, eggs, sausages, etc. And I may have once forgotten to tell my Jewish and Muslim friends that there were bacon bits in a braised lamb gnocchi I cooked and brought to school one day..... No really I did forget and I sure as hell did not tell them about it.

I can't imagine anyone would ever take ajamafalous.

Um....yeah...

Amazingly I was able to secure this username on all whiskeymedia sites! :)

I doubt there's any other Abyssfull's out there, except maybe on some sephiroth fan sites or something. Man, my username's lame. Been thinking 'bout changing to either Yummylee (PSN-ID) or aChaChaCha (Iunno) but I've gotten so damn attached to it...

There are a lot of TheHTs out there and a whole lot of just plain H.T.s. Thankfully I snatched up TheHT on Steam and PSN before they could.

Most people can't even pronounce my username so I haven't had that problem. I do have the problem of people on Xbox Live calling me Mariah Carey, however.

I've been using this name since my days at the G4 forums way back in the early aughts. I've only run into someone else using it once that I can remember; when I was setting up my Twitter account. At the time it was used by some porn spammer of some sort, which was shut down soon after.

I pulled this name off Wikipedia randomly one day and have had it ever since. I get super pissed because there is this shitty satanic black metal band out there that uses my name D: They suck! They are so bad! They took the youtube account and DONT EVEN USE THE DAMN THING. Wait, I just checked and they closed the account. Still not happy about it. Listen to 30 seconds of this and tell me its not the worst thing you've ever had in your ears.

I'm probably just bitter, but fuck those guys. I can't even steal their art for forum banners or something because I hate all of it!

Yes, it's the reason I have a terrible username on PSN and I don't want to create a new account because the account is level 17. That's a lot of god damn trophies! LET ME CHANGE MY USER NAME SONY!

yeah, sometimes. i change my name for accounts all the time.

Dude you have no idea how much it pissed me off when that piece of shit Annoying Orange decided to make a picture called Darth Orange. It wasn't even funny! I had used the name first! I wasn't going to call myself "Orange County Star Wars Fan" so I figured "Darth Orange" would be more catchy, and now I still get messages every once in a while if my name is a reference to that stupid orange.

My name is 100% original and taken from no media source or real life, just my imagination.

The answer is no.

Well, this is the only site I have this name on. I have no idea why I chose it because I really do not like it at all. I tend to use different names on different sites so I never really run into any problems.

I wish I had a short, unique nickname in real life because then I could just use that for all of my usernames.

I've never had problems with any of my internet aliases being in use by other people, but I've also never been fully happy with any of the ones I've used.

Oh, I certainly have a couple of those...

The only domain name I want is taken by a law firm, just like every last-name.com address.

But that's nothing compared to this:

Back in 2000, in the days of my MIDI tracking passion, I wrote lyrics for and tracked a song entitled "Theory of a Madman." I still have that .MID and .TXT.

Two years later, four Canadians released a self-titled album called "Theory of a Deadman."

That's not parody, and I demand royalties.

My username is always taken, I got lucky with GiantBomb.

My username is always taken, I got lucky with GiantBomb.

I find mine used reasonably often. I got it on PSN and XBL, though.

Twice. Some dicktits on Steam has Enigma777. I'd really like to meet him and kick his ass around for a bit. Also someone had it on the Saints Row website, though I have a sneaking suspicion it was me.

It's like that movie "The One". If you find these people and kill them, you will get stronger. Do it!

This name is apparently more prevalent in foreign countries, so while I'm not likely to see it used as a handle on any forums, I typically have to add numbers after it when using a more popular service like gmail or Steam. So I know it's out there as an actual name and people use it, but it still kinda weirds me out if I do see someone with the name in an online game or something.

Still, I much prefer it to going by something super common and boring (like Neo) or something cool when you're 12 that ends up being embarrassing later (like XxSephirothGokuxX).

I'm pretty sure I'm the only XtremeMuffinMan. 
 
Creativity and uniqueness at its finest.

Unless I register to a site soon after it has started I never get this username. I have some backups, but if I know a site is old I don't even bother trying to get CaLe as a username.

I've pretty consistently been able to get my username.

I've had a few over the years, but none have ever shown up as already taken. Unless, of course, I've forgotten that I already registered there. ha. Which happens.

Mine's kind of a funny story (well, it's not hilarious). Everywhere else I go by the name Mr. 125. I decided to Google it one day because it was already in use for a Minecraft account, to my surprise, and so I had to resort to my backup, Radio_Resistance.

I found, to my dismay, somebody else had taken the name Mr_125 (I'm fairly certain he started using it after I did), and then went on a mad scramble to take up the name on Twitter/Youtube/Photobucket/Bibo or what have you. From some light browsing, if I recall, he might have even had the same name as me in real life (and this dude is German). Weird coincidence. But what's funny is for his listed XBL gamertag, it's mister125. It is so, because when I got my 360 in 2006, I'd nabbed up the profile Mr_125 and it's been sitting on silver XBL status for six years or so now.

That's my one goddamn victory over this imposter :P, and it feels so good. But I have to think, did this guy Google the name like me to see why it was taken, then decide he needed to claim everything else right from under me? However, I'm thinking I have to retire the name soon because losing Twitter and Youtube are pretty big blows, and that's part of the reason why I'm named as I am now.

My nickname used to be just 'Vexx' and then one day a game showed up with that name so I added the -an to...get away from that.

Never had any trouble with this so far. Came across someone who had Xeno in the username. Mine just came from the fact I was playing Xenogears at the time and I love Aliens. Then I just added Nick to the end.

I've NEVER ran into another GetEveryone, but I couldn't for the life of me get it as my gmail account, much to my disdain.

I'm pretty certain I nailed it on GFWL and LIVE as well, but I can't be sure.

Anyway, it's mine and no one else can have it.

I've never had Canteu be taken, but this is probably because it's not a word, just something i made up.

I used to go by Gaff, and it would really piss me off when that was taken, since that is basically my name IRL.

With a name like Sweep, I very rarely get my first choice. However my fallback is "SexualInfection" which, for some reason, is always available. Weird, huh?

Oh sure. My username comes from a rather famous poem by "beat" writer, Gregory Corso called "Marriage". As such, there are quite a few people who've adopted the name "Penguin Dust". There was an album by the band Atomic Opera named "Penguin Dust". There are a few websites that use the name including a "penguindust.com". And, from time to time I run across "Username is in use" when signing up for things. It doesn't happen often but it does. The one time it irked me was when I couldn't resign up for Xbox with the name because my previous account had lapsed and Microsoft wouldn't allow me to retrieve it. In the days of the original Xbox, I took the name "PenguinDust", but a hurricane happened and I found myself without broadband internet for more than a year. During that time my account expired. When I called them to reactivate it the person told me the username had been placed in their "dead" pile and unless I had all the information I had when I opened the account (I didn't have much left after the storm), I wouldn't be able to use that name even though I had proven my identity to the customer support person and she admitted that the original account was mine. Anyway, long story short, sometimes I find that the reason I can't use the name "PenguinDust" is because I've already used it and can't retrieve the original. Incidentally, I've used the name "Penguin Dust" since 1988 although I've only been using it online since 1996.

Most people can't even pronounce my username so I haven't had that problem. I do have the problem of people on Xbox Live calling me Mariah Carey, however.

The two I use frequently, this one and another, older one, are never taken as I made them up and their origins are realatively obscure in the first place.

Ok the first part of my username maybe not so much, but the combo is fairly unique (and it rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?). Rather than using my go-to I made this one up for this website and have started using it in a few other instances as well.

I've had the worst of luck trying to get usernames. That is why I'm now stuck with about 3 that I use in heavy rotation. My first choice is always "Arzt" which I've been using for awhile now, but it's way to short and almost always somebody has taken it. Second choice is this one, "Jackhole", but in the last couple of years I stopped using it as much. And then there is "Ahnoldinator", which I also don't love. Most of the time I just go with first name last initial or just my full name.

For some reason my name is always taken, who'd have thought Master Chief and Legolas would prove so popular?

I've had to change what I used as my username a few times because it was too common. I used to go by simply "Zephyr" on other forums and online games. I just added a few letters to make this one, and have yet to see anyone else use it. It has the added effect of being more fem, too, I'm getting a little more attached to it.