# SSO with overlapping usernames
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/sso-with-overlapping-usernames/136273
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [December 17, 2019, 2:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sso-with-overlapping-usernames/136273 "2019-12-17T02:36:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@hollyw](https://meta.discourse.org/u/hollyw)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2019, 2:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sso-with-overlapping-usernames/136273/1 "2019-12-17T02:36:15Z")
I’m on a team that’s currently working to setup our own Discourse forum. We’re using SSO, so people’s usernames are based on an external value and are not editable to users. In our case there’s the possibility of two or more people with the same name joining the forum.
We’re wondering - What would happen if two John Smiths joined our forum? Would there be some sort of conflict for the first/second John, or would the new username automatically “increment” in some way? I.e., the first one is `john_smith` and the second one is `john_smith1` or something similar.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2019, 6:12am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sso-with-overlapping-usernames/136273/2 "2019-12-17T06:12:25Z")
> [@hollyw](#):
>
> the first one is `john_smith` and the second one is `john_smith1` or something similar.
Yes, that is correct!
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2020, 6:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sso-with-overlapping-usernames/136273/3 "2020-01-16T06:22:03Z")
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