# Group name validation doesn't allow UTF-8 characters

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-name-validation-doesnt-allow-utf-8-characters/55823
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [January 16, 2017, 9:29am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-name-validation-doesnt-allow-utf-8-characters/55823 "2017-01-16T09:29:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Glamdring](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/glamdring/32/121266_2.png) [@Glamdring](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Glamdring)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2017, 9:29am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-name-validation-doesnt-allow-utf-8-characters/55823/1 "2017-01-16T09:29:53Z")

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I’m trying to create a group with a name in cyrillic script and the error message is "that “only letters, digits and underscore” is allowed. My guess is there’s an a-zA-Z regex, which doesn’t cover UTF-8. So please have in mind that latin script isn’t the only one in the world when doing validation.

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2017, 10:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-name-validation-doesnt-allow-utf-8-characters/55823/2 "2017-01-16T10:03:48Z")

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Groupnames and usernames are ASCII, like Twitter. This is an intentional design decision.

The “full name” for the group or user can be 110% unicode.

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### Author: ![system](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/system/32/443519_2.png) [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2019, 3:39pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-name-validation-doesnt-allow-utf-8-characters/55823/3 "2019-04-21T15:39:24Z")

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2019, 4:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-name-validation-doesnt-allow-utf-8-characters/55823/4 "2019-04-21T16:56:26Z")

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@gerhard is about to check in a change that allows full Unicode in usernames and presumably group names as well. I believe this is behind a site setting @gerhard?

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### Author: ![gerhard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/gerhard/32/119479_2.png) [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2019, 6:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-name-validation-doesnt-allow-utf-8-characters/55823/5 "2019-04-22T18:12:07Z")

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Yes, Unicode support for usernames will be behind a site setting (default off). Group names use the same validation rules as usernames, so this change will essentially allow Unicode group names as well.

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### Author: ![JammyDodger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jammydodger/32/254611_2.png) [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2022, 11:34am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-name-validation-doesnt-allow-utf-8-characters/55823/7 "2022-07-27T11:34:34Z")

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