What Is a Good Username for a Dating Site?

A good username is a name a woman could say out loud on a first date. This applies to the sites that show a username or display name next to your profile. Tinder, Hinge and Bumble use your first name instead, so there is nothing to choose there. On the others, the name is part of your first impression, along with your profile headline and bio.

OkCupid asks members to use a first name instead of a username. If you do not want to show yours, initials or a nickname are fine, as long as it is something you would be comfortable having your date call you. It is not asking for a full legal name.

Its reason is that dating is more personal than a username. It wants interactions to feel more human, and introducing yourself the way you would in real life is part of that.

OkCupid treats the display name and the profile text like a first message to another member. It expects both to be respectful and appropriate. A name that could be read as offensive, hateful, obscene or clearly trolling leads to moderation, up to a ban of the profile.

It does not check names against ID. It will still act on names that make a profile look fake, such as using a celebrity name instead of your own.

Match's help pages do refer to member usernames. Search results can be sorted alphabetically by username. Its list of removed profiles names members by username too.

Match also reviews every section of a profile before it posts, including the essay, short answers, first name and occupation. It does not allow abusive language, or contact details such as email addresses, links, instant messenger IDs or phone numbers. So a username that carries your number or handle is a risk, because it breaks the rule before anyone reads a word.

Plenty of Fish shows a user name with your photo on your own profile screen. Its profile tips add that the headline appears in various places around the site, usually next to the name, and is one of the first things another user sees.

So the headline is a second line next to the name, and it can carry the personality that a plain name does not have to.

What follows is our coaching view. It is not an app rule, and none of it is a quote about usernames.

a dating coach's general rule for anything on a profile is that it should be easy to explain and match how you show up on the date. A username that needs explaining fails that test. So does a joke you could not carry in person.

His other point is that a profile that looks like every other man's gets swiped past out of boredom. A name built from the common stock reads like the rest: a first name followed by a string of digits, or a reference to the gym or to sex.

And a woman wants to be attracted without seeing effort. A name that tries hard to sound cocky or sexual reads as pushy, which is the second most common profile mistake he lists.

These are illustrations written for this article, not real members. On a site that wants a first name, use it, or the nickname everyone already calls you. On a site with a free username, add one true detail: Ben_Carpenter says what he does, and Nico_Trailrunner says how he spends a Saturday. Skip a first name plus a long number, a celebrity's name, and anything with a sex reference or contact details in it.

In our view, not as much as your photos or your headline and bio. A username does not get you a date, but it can cost you one. So pick a name that is honest and easy to say, and move on to the parts of the profile that do the real work.