“Think carefully about the username you choose. Once it’s been selected, you won’t be able to change or transfer it.”
Approximately 23% of Facebook users are college aged females. Statistics show that approximately 77% of these females will marry one day, and roughly 85% of those who do will change their names. This means that roughly 3.3 million women who are currently in college will one day change their names. Add to that the women who are out of college, and the 50%+ who will divorce, and you have quite a few people who will be changing their names sooner or later.
Yet Facebook wants us to pick one name for life—like a tattoo that can’t be changed.
So what’s a single female to do? Sign up with a maiden name and stick to it? Wait to see what happens? Take a chance on a future name?
The lack of flexibility is absurd. I guess I’m just going to have to get creative.
Did you create a Facebook URL? Whether you’re a man or a woman, how do you view this issue?
Kelly Anne
So I’m not the only one who thought about this. I originally tried for just my first name, but no go – so I used my current last name.
My idea is that people will always be able to search for me using my current full name; and watching all of my aunts create profiles with “First Maiden Last” makes me realize that my last name right now is going to still be important for people searching in the future.
Either that, or by the time it matters (five years into the marriage when more people are starting to know me as my husband’s name as opposed to my maiden name?), Facebook will matter less.
Norcross
I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be changed down the road. I think they’re putting this in place now to prevent numerous switching / squatting / hacking attempts. But who knows.
Obviously I don’t have that concern, and my wife hyphenated her name when we got married. And I don’t think she even cares about her URL to begin with.
Jeff
@Norcross
I tend to agree—squatting would have been a huge problem if they just opened it up to the masses. I don’t see any other reason why they would have done the custom URLs that way. Let’s hope they loosen the restriction later on after the storm clears.
Meg Roberts
Hi Allie,
This is a great post, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before I signed up for my own URL. However, as Norcross and Jeff pointed out, I do think Facebook will relax these rules in the future. They’ve already started doing so with branded public profiles (fan pages), but the process still has to be completed on the back-end by going through Facebook itself.
Best,
Meg
Ryan
I’m sorry Allie, I have to complain about this one. It really bothers me to see people writing articles that stir up segregation discussions in the year 2009. I understand some people will want to change this down the road.. but I’m not sure why it has to be related to sex…
What about employees of companies (@comcastcares, @comcastbill) or people want to use play full names but in order to keep their job they have to stay ‘professional’. But then they lose their job and want to have their life back so they want to change their vanity url back to ‘msucutiepie’ from college because thats how all their friends know them.
Also, you do realize that when twitter first allowed you to do this, they also had the same restriction…
And 9/10 people don’t even use their real name for URL’s like this anyway; @allieosmar is still available (so is @allisonosmar) but you chose @allieo instead.
Lastly, keep in mind that you don’t have to use this service, if you don’t like it, don’t use it. And if you choose not to use it, please don’t write posts for the sake of gathering the masses and pissing them off so that they will rebel against Facebook and start creating groups “LET US CHANGE OUR NAME OF WERE LEAVING FACEBOOK” – yea.. ok.
Meg Howard
I think @Ryan is reading waaaay too far into this post for the facts it presented.
Interesting points raised, Allie.
Jeff
I don’t think this has anything to do with sexism or women’s rights—it’s just an unnecessary hurdle if you happen to be someone that needs to change their name. If Facebook wants to be the World’s directory, they are going to need to be more flexible with this sort of thing. However, I feel this is a moot point because Facebook will remove this restriction once the hype is gone (ala Twitter).
Ryan
I’m just going to call it quits on this one before I offend anyone.. Happy Tuesday everyone!
Emily
The thing is women who decide to change their name are going to have a problem regardless. Whether its going through the hassle of changing all their credit cards, their social security card, or all of their computer world things (gmail, twitter, etc).
I’m not sure I would single out facebook in this matter because there is a whole other world of hassles that are much bigger than facebook when it comes to getting married or changing your name.
It is an interesting thought though, that I didn’t consider when I picked my facebook url. I’m sure as the above posters have mentioned – it will be changed further down the line.
Allie Osmar
I can count on Ryan to play Devil’s advocate
I’m not intending to bring up segregation/feminism issues here at all. I’m just stating a fact. You were able to select a username using your last name with total confidence that this will always be your name. I’m not. Simple.
I agree that any tool that wants to position itself for the masses should be prepared to provide this flexibility – and I’m sure this is something we’ll see in the future.
DShan
I’m glad it’s been suggested that the rules will eventually change…I have that hope about any tool that I think is useful but missing the point on some archaic restriction. Twitter not encouraging dead accounts to recirculate bothers me. Facebook’s rule is stupid, but it’s also the first week and they’re known for changing their stances pretty quick.
It never ceases to amaze me the way tech companies seem to focus on certain things without contemplating usability or function.
SarahD
Oddly enough, I found it quite pleasant to ditch my maiden last name professionally as I hadn’t acquired any advanced degree with my maiden name, and I didn’t have a large body of work that I wanted to retain for references (that couldn’t cope with a name change).
I did, however, find that my unsightly usenet youth was pleasantly washed away from future employer’s googling… Clean slate!
And, on the facebook thing, I have a particular “handle” that I use for most online social network thingies. It has nothing to do with my real life name (maiden or married).
Xander Skyrien
I find this whole discussion amusing, and largely moot. Still, this might sound like a stupid question, but do the majority of women really choose their emails/screennames/online handles considering the possiblity of it changing in the future?
CMM
No, most women don’t think about the possibility of changing their name in the future, especially if they aren’t in college yet. And this is exactly the problem that Allie is pointing out. I didn’t think about it until a month after choosing a url with my current last name, and after a little bit of browsing I’ve discovered that most of my friends weren’t thinking about it either. If facebook sticks to its strict policy, then all of us are going to have maiden name urls. Not that vanity urls are hugely important, but it could be annoying, especially if a woman prefers her new name.
Janet
Good post, Allie. In an era where personal branding is so important, I think all social networking sites should allow vanity URLs to be changed if you legally change your name, whether you are female or male. Ideally, the old URL should forward to the new one!