# Group names do not allow German letters (umlauts)
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-names-do-not-allow-german-letters-umlauts/103086
**Category:** UX
**Created:** [11월 29, 2018, 4:09오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-names-do-not-allow-german-letters-umlauts/103086 "2018-11-29T16:09:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@GuidoD](https://meta.discourse.org/u/GuidoD)
#### Post date: [11월 29, 2018, 4:09오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-names-do-not-allow-german-letters-umlauts/103086/1 "2018-11-29T16:09:04Z")
the creation of a new group does now allow German letters (umlauts) like ä, ö, ü and ß
But it is not mentioned in the error message that only ANSI letters are allowed.
Would be good to mention it in the error message that only ANSI is allowed in the group names.
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### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [11월 29, 2018, 7:35오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-names-do-not-allow-german-letters-umlauts/103086/2 "2018-11-29T19:35:18Z")
Group names follow the same rules as usernames. The username error also does not mention ASCII only. `Username must only include numbers, letters, dashes, and underscores`.
I’m not sure if adding “ASCII” to the error would be a good idea, however, as most users won’t know that is.
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### Author:  [@csmu](https://meta.discourse.org/u/csmu)
#### Post date: [11월 29, 2018, 8:09오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-names-do-not-allow-german-letters-umlauts/103086/3 "2018-11-29T20:09:53Z")
ä, ö, ü, and ß are letters.
What is the technical reason why they are not allowed?
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### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [11월 29, 2018, 9:59오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-names-do-not-allow-german-letters-umlauts/103086/4 "2018-11-29T21:59:37Z")
Unfortunately regular users usually do not know about ASCII, ANSI and such things. You are welcome to update the German translation of that error message on Transifex to make it easier for German speaking people to understand.
I really hope that we can lift the ASCII restriction for usernames and group names sometime in the future, but yeah, we have to live with it for now. Sorry about that.
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> We should bite the bullet and allow Unicode _letter_ character sets in usernames at some point.
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### Author:  [@GuidoD](https://meta.discourse.org/u/GuidoD)
#### Post date: [11월 29, 2018, 10:23오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-names-do-not-allow-german-letters-umlauts/103086/5 "2018-11-29T22:23:29Z")
> [@gerhard](#):
>
> You are welcome to update the German translation of that error message on Transifex to make it easier for German speaking people to understand.
I did there already a couple of the german translations for Discourse in the last couple of months. 😉
I will have a look at this specific error message on the weekend.
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### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [1월 21, 2020, 8:34오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-names-do-not-allow-german-letters-umlauts/103086/6 "2020-01-21T20:34:34Z")
유니코드 사용자 이름과 그룹 이름은 이미 꽤 오래前から 지원되어 왔습니다. `unicode usernames` 사이트 설정을 활성화하세요.
> [@Unicode usernames and group names](https://meta.discourse.org/t/unicode-usernames-and-group-names/117737):
>
> Lifting the restrictions on allowed characters in usernames is one of the oldest feature requests. Starting with Discourse 2.3.0.beta9 it’s finally possible to use Unicode characters within usernames and group names. New Site Settings There are two new site settings: allowed unicode username characters and unicode usernames. allowed unicode username characters allows you to allow only certain Unicode characters (e.g. [äöüßÄÖÜẞ] or \p{Greek}). By default Discourse permits letters ([Ll](https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/category/Ll) …
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### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [1월 25, 2020, 11:00오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-names-do-not-allow-german-letters-umlauts/103086/7 "2020-01-25T23:00:04Z")
이 주제는 4일 후 자동으로 닫혔습니다. 더 이상 새 답글을 작성할 수 없습니다.