In any online community, the issue of usernames is always a hot topic. Whoever runs the system has to decide at some point if a user is going to be referred to by his lastname, his lastname.firstname, his firstname.lastname, or initiallastname, or sevenand1, etc. Obviously, a convention has to be set so usernames become predictable and uniform.

Depending on the system, punctuation may or may not be welcome. Hyphens, periods, underscores, etc. could all muck up the functions of that particular software. Length could also be an issue. Early computers were obsessed with brevity; lastname and first initial (or seven letters of the last name, and the first initial) seemed to be a running trend for logging in to virtually any system.

Assuming you have no such limitations, however, what’s the best way?  The biggest complication with usernames (in my opinion) is avoiding duplicates. Bill Smith and Bob Smith are different people, and require different access, and email addresses, etc. so right off the bat, bsmith or smithb look like bad ideas. With the oh-so-popular 7 and 1 method, users don’t even have to have the same last name to create conflicts. Samantha Robertson would have the same username as Steve Roberts.

How do we think of people in the real world? I have a friend named Mike Johnson. Chris Bosh is a good basketball player. I like music by Johnny Cash. I have hundreds of examples I could list (turns out Facebook is good for something), but I sense a running theme: People generally go by their first and last name, in that order. Why do we feel the need to change that and make computers seem foreign and impersonal?

You’re just asking for confusion. Think of all the Smiths, Johnsons, and Williams(es)… you probably have a few of them in your organization. Some of them might even have the same initial. Why not send a note to Joe.Smith@yourcompany.com instead of guessing wrong with smithj@whatever.com and sending it to Jane instead? It’s easy to remember, you run less risk of duplicates, and it’s more personal than abbreviation.

Which is why you can reach me at Firstname.Lastname@left-button.com…