# User Naming Convention

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/user-naming-convention/394068
**Category:** Community Building
**Created:** [January 22, 2026, 8:49am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/user-naming-convention/394068 "2026-01-22T08:49:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 10

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### Author: ![pfaffman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/pfaffman/32/120154_2.png) [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2026, 3:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/user-naming-convention/394068/10 "2026-01-22T15:06:51Z")

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> [@itsbhanusharma](#):
>
> Convention is what works for you and your community!

That’s true.

> [@Shirly\_Nowak](#):
>
> In my opinion, it’s ideal for the **username to be the person’s real name** , since that’s what other members will use to mention or tag them in conversations.

That definitely depends on community norms.

What I’d be inclined to do is let people use whatever username they find appropriate, the real name in the name field, and a user\_custom\_field for their business name. You can configure it to display on their user profile and/or user card. That won’t show it on every post, though a theme component count conceivably add it.

But if your system is working then it’s working. You could customize text to make the labels for the name field be “business name” or similar.

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