Discourse does not show the Real Name on a topic page then it (wrongly) assumes it is the same as the Username

[downey (Michael Downey)]

@dmitry_fedyuk

Discourse does not show the Real Name because it assumes it too similar to the Username

Agreed; this is a horrible design and nobody likes it.

See previous discussion:

Allow site operators to control full name suppression on posts

Continuing the discussion from Is user ID + real name redundant?: … well, not quite. It appears that if the user ID is the same as the full name (minus the capitalization and spaces), only the user name displays. In other words, one would see only michaeldowney next to my avatar image instead of "michaeldowney Michael Downey". While this is indeed redundant, it makes one wonder why that person “doesn’t have a name”. It’s also inconsistent with the user card and user profile page.