This is an interesting issue. The site currently enforces unique login functionality, but allows you to pick any name you wish. Unfortunately, I was thinking of people who would either pick "names" to be their logins (and therefore the name would be unique) or a full name (first and last) which would ensure that duplicates are highly unlikely. I'm not sure what to do in a situation where people want to go by their first names only...

If anyone has thoughts on this, please chime in

Well I think it will be berrter if we use our full names instead of our login names just like what most of the users (including myself) is doing. In that case chances are less, in fact very less that two people will be using the same name and in case you still find two people with the same first as well as last names, in that case the first preference will be given to that user who has registered before and as a result of which the second one will have to change his details (in fact just a change in the name I mean).If this is done then the user's logins will also remain hidden and all the users will be sharing different names. So, here the first preference must be given to that Alan who has registered before and not to the one who has registered later (the one who wrote Hello in the chatterbox). And such cases are very rare may be 1 in 10 or still less, i mean say 1 in 25, that is 4 in 100 or so. I do not know what others have to say about this (that logins must remain hidden and the one who registerd first must be given the choice or the first preference and accordingly the new user has to act). This was just a suggestion from my part and the rest depends on what the majority says. Thank You.

I like the freedom the extra "layer" of having a name gives. You can always set it to the login name (as I have, and other people on the site, such as fl), or your full name (Ravi, Cory, etc).

Because most of the places where people's names are shown, they are linked to their user info pages, the potential for "pretending" to be someone else is small.

The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards this not being a serious issue with the setup, but more a social issue of having people pick responsible "names". Perhaps I will make it so that your name cannot be the same as someone else's login. But I'm not even sure that's neccessary.

I cannot believe two people go by Alan on this site.

I would agree that having people with the same name is rare, but it might be like that birthday problem. With 365 different "possible" names, you would only need 20-30 people to have odds of having two people with the same name.

Maybe it does make sense to put avatars on the comments.

I think it's better to have a screen name and an actual name. Many people come up with something really bizarre to be their screen name, and would have an actual name that is better. Maybe you could only make it so that the first person to get a name makes it unique.

I found out that there's another Tristan already! If this is changed, would people be asked to change their names?