Discord is making some changes to the way your username is displayed inside its app. In a blog post this week, Discord CTO and co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy discusses the changes coming to usernames, which basically breaks down to one thing.
Getting rid of the four-digit discriminators. If you’re not sure what that is, it’s the little hashtag and four numbers that come after your username. When Discord started, Vishnevskiy says that the idea was to let people choose whatever name they wanted. Even if some people had the same username, they were unique based on the four-digit discriminator.
But these changes mean that only one user will be able to have any one specific username. Of note, is that long-time users of Discord will have priority over newer users when it comes to these username changes. So there is a possibility that some will miss out on a name they may have wanted.
Discord username changes will roll out in the weeks ahead
Before you rush to pick a name so you don’t lose out, you won’t be able to do so just yet. These changes will be rolled out in the coming weeks. However, they won’t hit everyone at once. They’ll start with longtime users first. Then continue throughout the year with the newest users being in the last wave of rollouts. In short, the order of choosing a username will be based on when you registered.
As far as what’s allowed for a username, it’ll be limited to alphanumeric characters. You’ll be able to use lowercase characters a-z, numbers 0-9, and the period or underscore characters. This will just be for your username though. Your “display name” or alias, will allow for much more freedom and will allow special characters and even emoji if you wish.
You can read more about these changes in the official blog post. But otherwise just keep an eye out for a Discord notification about your username change.