What Is a Reddit Username?
A Reddit username is the permanent name that identifies an account, written with a u/ prefix as in u/example. It is chosen at registration, is unique across Reddit, and cannot be changed afterwards.
Username versus display name
These are two different things, and mixing them up is the most common reason people fail to find the right account.
| Username | Display name | |
|---|---|---|
| Can be changed | Never | Any time |
| Unique | Yes | No, two accounts can share one |
| Used in the URL | Yes | No |
| Searchable | Yes, exact match only | No |
Why it matters
The username is the only reliable way to identify a Reddit account, and the only thing Reddit will let you search on. Because it is permanent, an account's entire public history stays attached to one name for its whole life, which is what makes tracing activity possible at all.
The flip side is that Reddit offers no partial or fuzzy matching. A username you half remember is a username you cannot find. Capitalisation, at least, is ignored: u/Example and u/example resolve to the same account.
Example
All four of these refer to the same account, and all four work as a search:
example_useru/example_userU/Example_Userhttps://reddit.com/user/example_user
What will not work is example user with a space, or exampleuser without the underscore. Usernames are made of letters, numbers, underscores and hyphens, and every character has to be right.
Deleted usernames
When an account is deleted, its old posts and comments remain but the author becomes [deleted]. The link between the writing and the name is severed permanently, which is why a deleted account cannot be traced even though its words are still there.
Related terms
- Reddit profile — the page a username resolves to.
- Throwaway — a deliberately separate account, the closest thing Reddit has to privacy.
- Shadowban — when a username 404s to everyone but its owner, as though it was never registered.
Check whether a username exists and what it is attached to.
Check a Reddit username