# Offering blank username suggestions rather than ‘UserN’ at signup
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/offering-blank-username-suggestions-rather-than-usern-at-signup/391542
**Category:** UX
**Tags:** fixed, signup
**Created:** [December 17, 2025, 10:39am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/offering-blank-username-suggestions-rather-than-usern-at-signup/391542 "2025-12-17T10:39:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2025, 10:39am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/offering-blank-username-suggestions-rather-than-usern-at-signup/391542/1 "2025-12-17T10:39:24Z")
Pulling this out into a separate topic as this is proving to be a significant bugbear on a site I’m involved with:
> [@Prevent Google OAuth2 users getting username "user1", "user2"...?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/prevent-google-oauth2-users-getting-username-user1-user2/379798/8):
>
> When `use email for username and name suggestions` is disabled, we could leave the username field blank at signup instead of suggesting `userN` — we’ve done something similar in our admin account signups on new Discourse sites.
> [@Prevent Google OAuth2 users getting username "user1", "user2"...?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/prevent-google-oauth2-users-getting-username-user1-user2/379798/9):
>
> I would much prefer that, myself. I’d rather see people mash the keyboard and come up with a nonsense username (or hook into a [username generator API](https://randomusernameapi.github.io/)) than end up with a bunch of `userN`.
>
> I can’t quite imagine a reason to prefer `userN`, but if I’m missing something, maybe an optional setting could make everyone happy.
I think leaving it blank would be a much smoother signup experience as no one wants a forum populated by indistinct usernames (@user763, @user764, @user765), so the suggestions are rarely (if ever) helpful.
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### Author:  [@brenna12](https://meta.discourse.org/u/brenna12)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2025, 10:55am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/offering-blank-username-suggestions-rather-than-usern-at-signup/391542/2 "2025-12-17T10:55:34Z")
This would be a good solution for my community too, the username field auto-populates with an available username (in UserXYZ style). Although this field is editable, and I have added some custom text to make new users aware of this, we are still getting a lot of new users with default usernames 😕
Would be very happy to see this introduced! 🙂
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### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2026, 10:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/offering-blank-username-suggestions-rather-than-usern-at-signup/391542/5 "2026-01-08T10:03:05Z")
> [@brenna12](#):
>
> Would be very happy to see this introduced! 🙂
It is _now_ 😉
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/36830](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/36830)
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### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2026, 7:00am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/offering-blank-username-suggestions-rather-than-usern-at-signup/391542/6 "2026-01-09T07:00:55Z")
This topic was automatically closed after 20 hours. New replies are no longer allowed.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2026, 9:01pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/offering-blank-username-suggestions-rather-than-usern-at-signup/391542/7 "2026-04-15T21:01:34Z")
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### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2026, 4:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/offering-blank-username-suggestions-rather-than-usern-at-signup/391542/8 "2026-04-17T16:18:16Z")