What are usernames like in Finnish online communities? Lasse Hämäläinen examined 7,600 usernames in three different communities. The most popular tend to reflect the user’s own first name, family name, or nickname (Jenni). Other popular choices are proper nouns (star wars-1), various descriptive words (coolboy9) and made-up names (htunaungh).
Often, the first username you choose is already taken. As a result, users customize that choice through modifications. Most commonly, they add numbers (Bella92), special characters (V!rtual), or additional letters (voldemortt). Other approaches involve changing or deleting some of the letters of the name. If the letters have been removed, deletion is most often done at the end of the word (DeacoMa). An extra space is sometimes added inside the word (Piz za), sometimes between parts of a compound word (jedi nite).
Only 40 percent of the usernames in Hämäläinen’s study began with a capital letter. The most popular languages were Finnish and English, but the third most popular, unexpectedly, was Japanese.