Idea: if a username is changed, open up the old one. They aren’t using it anymore. Or do what discord used to do, and have the randomized tag at the end that is hidden, until you open their profile. The latter is better long term, but the former is perfect short term. We also have UserIds, so that can be used to help. Display names have helped a bit, but don’t fix the issue.
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Boo-hoo…
It’s still entirely possible to get a clean, recognizable looking username on Roblox. You just need to be creative, accept that certain things will be long gone (CheetaSpeed for example) and work around it. Think of a thing a bit more niche than one of the most well-known animals. Like a videogame or movie character. Still taken? Don’t resort to numbers, add some pizzazz, try something unique and different.
How would you even “recycle” usernames? Ban the account? Uncool. Replace it with a default username? Would they have to pay 1k robux to get a new one? Discriminators? How does this solve the issue of needing a unique, recognizable username? Might as well just add 4 numbers to your username.
Get a shitty username and use display names, or try harder. My name is not the greatest, but I got it.
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I don’t understand why we need an unique username as far as we got an unique id …
I think that could be cool to make every username unlocked but lock verified users username !
Have a nice day !
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I guess it made sense to have unique usernames at first, as searching by Id would be awful, but once you get to a stage where you’re adding an id code to the end anyway it seems pointless.
My username wasn’t my first choice (obviously I’m so cool), so I went with something ridiculous that no-one else could possibly have… Then tried that approach a few times before getting Wigglyaa. (Really didn’t want numbers).
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Roblox’s population is mostly kids. They would definitely not remember what their favorite YouTuber’s “tag” is. A kid would most likely see “omg my favorite youtuber is in the game” and could potentially get scammed by the impersonator.
Do the same thing they do to users whenever a celebrity event or sponsorship happens, change their username. Obviously Roblox wouldn’t recycle usernames of people who are actively using the platform or well-known users. Most people who have these “good” names are people who played the game in the late 2000s early 2010s for maybe a few years and then ultimately stopped playing. That username is just another name that was taken and is just stuck to that one specific user forever because there is no way to recycle it.
A good proposal is one that @woot3 had made years ago:
What’s worse is banned accounts still take usernames. I would much rather have my new account (after an incident with roblox moderation) to be “Chaos_Geo” instead of “Chaos_GeoAlt”. In addition, this means if someone else randomly decided “My account will be Chaos_Geo”, they can’t, because my banned main account takes that username.
Now, this could get confusing because Devforum exists, but then why not just delete accounts on the Devforum that are deleted on Roblox? It’s not that hard, as Roblox already has an HTTP request that can tell you if a user is banned
Terminated accounts need to retain their usernames for a least a bit of time, as the owner can appeal and under the slim chance they were false banned, they may be unterminated.
Additionally, terminated accounts show as inactive on old friend lists allowing you to see old friends who may have gotten terminated
True, and I was somewhat thinking of retaining usernames for a short time and that someone might bring it up (although I did not include it in my post). This would also help with impersonation since, say, a famous youtuber who was false banned for whatever reason would not be able to be impersonated. Maybe larger creators (like star creators or Roblox verified users) would keep their username long enough for people to forget about them if they were banned.
You are right about the friends list, although Roblox could store their username with the UserId (so that the friends list can still show the correct account and username and/or display name) However, I do not know how the friends list works, and I’m not a Roblox engineer so…
It is important to note that you cannot view the pages of banned accounts, and since the user page URL references UserId and not username, users getting to the wrong page (as the result of the friends list) should not be a problem.
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Roblox removes names like Gucci and gives them to brands because names like Gucci are trademarked. You haven’t trademarked whatever name you want, and you aren’t collaborating with Roblox, so I don’t understand why you guys think you have a right to the generic name you want.
When you make a Roblox account, you own it, and everything on it (well, technically you don’t, but Roblox gives you it, so to keep it simple, let’s just say you own it). Why is anyone else entitled to it? Would you like it if things in your house that went unused for a certain amount of time disappeared? I wouldn’t
But, let’s theoretically say your idea is implemented. In the current Roblox climate, any rare names that get released from an inactive account will be sniped in minutes, maybe even seconds. There’s a reason why all the “good names” were taken up to 17 years ago: because they’re most likely generic as all hell and a thousand people have had the same idea.
Let’s discuss impersonation. You addressed that saying that well-known users should keep their usernames? But now, who constitutes as “well-known?” Obviously, large devs, but what about minor “celebrities” like WoodReviewer or well-known accounts like Bob? What about the usernames of potentially terminated controversial users like jaredvaldez or MisterObvious, which I’m sure certain Roblox users would kill to obtain and abuse? So many usernames of terminated accounts will be floating around. Want to pretend to be an infamous pedophile? Well, if you are quick enough, you can, at least in your ideal reality. Like it or not, having terminated accounts keep their usernames is a pretty huge shield against impersonation of Bad actors. As you can see, so many aspects to consider. I’m sure you’ll have a rebuttal, and I’m sure it can be shot down easily. So hit me with your best.
The simple fact is that this issue has been addressed. Since 2018 (the original date this post was… posted), Roblox introduced display names! So now you can have any name you want (within reason). This was the best and simplest solution.
If this seems like a long post, think about being a Roblox engineer, having to discuss every single thing that could go right or wrong and the implement all this. Hellish, right?
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it’s in Roblox’s interest to crack down on third-party transactions of Roblox assets, content and currency. Instead of banning fraudulent users, they can hurt offsite markets by creating their own, on-platform Roblox version of it and regulating it.
Imagine a system where one can safely buy and sell, not only limiteds but also things like accounts, account names, groups, group names, games, scripts and other whatnot things on Roblox with any value. Right now, everyone here that wants a new cool name can already capitalise on it.
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Not a good thing. In fact, it was one of the worst updates in my opinion. Leaderboard? Useless. Knowing your friends’ usernames/display names? Impossible. Trying to report a player? Now you need to worry about their “twin”.
Things should have stayed the same. My username has a long story, but it all started when the Xbox app generated a gamertag for me. The name was not taken, and I joined Roblox in October 2018 if I remember correctly. This was not a problem when setting up my account, and I don’t understand why anyone wants to be named “person”.
If you cannot find a username, use a username generator like the Xbox gamertag generator.
Edit: Also taking into consideration that guests were removed, there are a lot more throwaway accounts. I guess this problem is becoming more relevant, so I might not be up to date.
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Uh, sure man. It’s not like the leaderboard also shows a users real username.
It does, but you gotta click them. It’s a real pain in 20+ player servers.
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It’s truly a shame how this post is so old but so relevant and it hasn’t really been taken into account by any members of staff (correct me if I’m wrong).
There’s thousands of accounts that were purely created to snipe usernames, and these accounts are well over 10 years old. Furthermore, there are MANY terminated accounts that hold usernames that people would love, I don’t understand the issue in permanently deleting term’d accounts so that people at least have the chance to get a username that they like. Others may say display names are the solution to this but they really aren’t as you can’t exactly identify an account with a display name, it will always be by username.
However, I’m still hoping that even if it’s in several years time Roblox realize that this issue can be easily addressed. But I would hope that it’s fairly soon.
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There’s so many replies so I haven’t read them all (so sorry if this was already mentioned) but I cannot agree more, day by day, this issue becomes more frustrating and relevant as each and every second, a new account is registered on the Roblox platform.
DisplayNames were implemented as a sort of workaround allowing people to be called what they want to be called but unfortunately the lack of usernames creates a bad UX while logging on. I mean, who wants to write some random spam whenever they log on to a browser that has not saved login data?
So, the question is, what can the solution be? And I believe that the most ideal solution would be this:
When a Roblox account has been deleted for 3 years, make its username vacant and completely delete the account from the Roblox system, ensuring that the account can no longer be accsssible. 3 years - in my opinion, is an ethical, more than enough time to allow for a user to discover that their Roblox account has been deleted. I don’t know, what do you think?
If this policy were to be implemented, it would allow for some unused usernames to be used again. This would include some good usernames as well.
People who’s accounts were falsely terminated would disagree with you
If you think you were falsely terminated, you have up to a month to appeal, after that, Roblox can’t help you under normal circumstances.. After a month, it doesn’t matter - it’s gone, unrecoverable under normal circumstances. It wouldn’t matter if they lost the username of an account they have no way of recovering anymore for usage. I feel bad for people who are falsely goners and wish for roblox’s crappy moderation UX to be better in the future, but if it’s gone - it’s gone. And when it’s gone - completely, the username should be available. It’s just my honest opinion. Like, why keep the username of a banned account that hasn’t been used in forever, someone else could actively use it.
The reason I suggested 3 years is in case the person went inactive and didn’t know they were banned. 3 years is a long time and in my opinion, enough time to discover you were banned from Roblox. I feel like a longer time period, like 5 or 10 years is a bit too long and kinda ridiculous.
Some people would suggest less than a year, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years etc… I just thought 3 was a reasonable timeframe to learn you were banned from Roblox. The time is a preference that can be adjusted to Roblox’s liking but the idea is to make the username available after some point.
The issue with this is that some terminated users have bad-history within the community (IE: they were doing some terrible things) so re-opening the use of the names would allow malicious actors to take the name further stirring up drama over the account again.
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Yes, great point. 
Some examples of horrible came to my mind. I wouldn’t want people impersonating them.
The only way my suggestion would work is if the usernames of super horrible people were manually blacklisted and unavailable to be used but I don’t think content moderators and the appeal team would be willing to go to this extent. It just doesn’t sound like a policy that would be enforced/applied regularly.
However, I just realized there can also become an issue where a normal user impersonates another normal user who was banned (ex. a game dev or a group owner or a ugc creator etc. by taking their username, wearing the same stuff as them and talking like them and possibly even defaming the original/real user by breaking rules). Then what happens?..How would people believe/know they’re different people…
I wish I saw these two issues earlier. It seems my suggestion would be bad.
Perhaps the maximum characters of a username could be increased to allow more meaningful usernames to be registered, however, I know that wouldn’t look so beautiful on a leaderboard in-game aesthetically speaking, and I know that eventually that’ll lead to the same problem faced today (lack of available good usernames) so I don’t know. Hope something is done somehow, I’m out of ideas.