Discord will soon require users to pick a new, unique username

If you’re a Discord user, now might be the best time to think of a new username for your account – a username that’s unique to you.

According to an announcement from Discord, the app will be doing away with the four-digit tag that it puts after the username to make it “easier to identify and connect with friends”. As a result, Discord users will no longer have the four-number tag called a discriminator that distinguishes one person from another with the same username.

Instead of the four-number discriminator, users will soon be required to have a unique alphanumeric username with the “@” symbol in front of it. Specifically, new usernames must be around 2 to 32 characters long and chosen from characters a-z, numbers 0 to 9. Special characters such as underscore ( _ ) and period ( . ) will be allowed too.

There are some limitations though such as usernames cannot have 2 consecutive period characters, and more importantly, usernames will now be unique to each user. This means no two users can share the same username. As a result, it will become something like Instagram, Twitter, and other mainstream social media usernames.

The announcement says the username changes will be rolled out in the coming weeks, with apps notifying users when they can apply for a username change. In addition, users with older accounts will be offered username change first compared to those with more recent accounts. Discord adds that your previous username and discriminator will still work as an alias once the changes arrive. As a result, your friends can still find you using your old username.

What do you think of Discord’s upcoming change for usernames? Is it a good thing, or will it make things even more confusing as compared to before? Share your thoughts in the comments below.