Discord is making a huge change to your usernames

Discord users, it’s time to say goodbye to those #0001, #0420 and #9999s you’ve been cherishing for all this time. Almost eight years since the platform’s inception, users are finally being required to choose a unique username, rather than being set apart by numerical ‘discriminators’.

If you’ve used Discord at any point up to now, I’m sure you’ll have noticed that you’re able to pick basically any username you want without question, even if it’s just your actual name. This is thanks to the power of numerical discriminators - the four digits assigned to each user which make them unique. Sure, there’s still a finite number of possible ‘John’ usernames, but there’s still a lot of choice.

Take a look at this husband’s hilarious reaction to being called his gamertag by his wife below.

However, this hasn’t necessarily been a flawless system, which is why in a new post on the Discord blog, co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy has announced that everyone will soon be required to pick a unique alphanumeric username, basically like Twitter.

According to Vishnevskiy, over 40% of Discord users don’t know their own numerical discriminator, which is quite a problem considering that you need to share the exact number with others in order to add them as friends. As a result, almost half of friend requests sent on the platform end up going to the wrong person (the fact that current usernames are case sensitive doesn’t help here, either).

So then, in the next few weeks, everyone will be asked to update their account with a brand new username. Those who’ve been on Discord for longer will be given priority when it comes to selecting their new identity, so long-time users have more of a chance of bagging themselves their existing username. Display names will still be editable at all times, so this mainly just changes how you’ll add other users.

“We recognise that this is a big change,” Vishnevskiy wrote. “There may be hiccups with this process, and it may be tough to part ways with that ‘#0001’ that’s meant a lot to you over the years. We’ll be doing everything we can to manage things as smoothly as possible.”