Choose what name to display in repositories.

[ArkenStorm]

Per the discussion and suggestion here, it seems like a lot of workplaces have developers use their personal github accounts in their organization, but there is no way to have github display the "Name" part of your profile by default.
This would be a fantastic addition and helpful in many organizations.
Perhaps if there were a per-repository or per-organization "preference" for what name to display by default?

[Rabattkarte]

I feel exactly like @xaved88 in the og discussion:

I don’t want to force my professional workspaces to look at my personal non-descript handle, nor do I want to “create a new account” for each project that I’m a part of.

[yalogames]

@Rabattkarte I have a GitHub Pages site, but the display name on Google Search shows as "GitHub" instead of my site name. What changes do I need to make to ensure that my site name appears correctly on Google Search?

[rainabba]

I'm part of a large org that's migrating from BitBucket. We have users creating entirely new accounts on GitHub JUST because of this concern, something easily addressed in the web UI and should be adjustable by org and user (org taking precendence.)

We aren't talking about global or repo config (though that has to be addressed too), but on the GitHub web UI, there's no good reason this isn't already resolved if the codebase is healthy and GitHub has concern about its users very real-world needs.

[RalphHightower]

I, for one, do not want share my personal GitHub account with my employer. What happens when you leave that employer? Will the employer disable that GitHub account since they are no longer an employee? It makes sense for an employer to disable accounts of former employees.

[Ulrar]

You don't, they add your account to their organization but the account stays yours, they don't get any access to it.
When you leave they'll take you out of their organization, so you'll lose access to company resources but that's it

[RalphHightower]

Thank you. Retaining my personal account is not an issue since I'm now retired.

[rainabba]

Each secure org I've joined had me take an extra step to authorize keys that will have access to their org/repos. Those keys would get disabled when you leave, but that's the only long-term impact and one that makes sense to me. This thread is more about how your co-workers will "discover" you on GitHub without already knowing your github username.

Example:

[philjb]

I'm also in favor of a new feature allowing organization specific profile names (slightly different than the original idea here).

For our company, we don't want to force employees into creating a handle or adding a profile name that is their real name (or even close to it) because we want our employees to be empowered to make the public internet identity choice that is right for him or her. Since the handles may be opaque to keep a person private, a great feature would be to have an "organization name" that is a name that shows like the GitHub profile name but is only visible within the organization and takes preference over the standard GitHub profile name at /~https://github.com/settings/profile.

[kapcod]

In our company we asked all developers to put their github nick as slack field so that, at least though slack, we can identify who is who. Another requirement is to have work email be defined and always used for commits on company repos. Of course having actual name, visible and searchable, would be better.

[mattgrogan]

This is a major problem - I can't audit usernames when they are "us8yu23wfs" or "new-banana-popcorn"!

[robbespo00]

Agree

[mr-jolly]

💯

It is incredibly difficult to audit, and I also don't want my unprofessional username to be displayed to everyone in my organization. Also, creating a separate account does not work well because I can not have two accounts associated with my SSO. As I am an admin in my organization, I want to guarantee than permissions have switched over to my new account because detaching my original account. Ideally, I would like to retain both accounts.

GitHub seems to cause me more issues than it solves lately. Pull requests are very poorly implemented. Sometimes I wonder if the GitHub developers actually use their own product.

[Cubox]

This is really annoying. I don't want to be showed as "Cubox" on all my company's internal repos, but as my full name. But keep using a single account, and the "Cubox" name for non-company repos

[skyem]

We need this at our large company. GitHub's auto-generated changelog in reviews shows the users that closed prs by username, but our company usernames are nonsensical letters and numbers in GitHub Enterprise Cloud, so it's not helpful.

[DradeAW]

+1 for this feature!

[evser]

+1

[Lakmus85]

Agree completely. In organizations it's not really productive to read "K43234 has approved this PR"

[JamieTaylor94]

+1

[robbespo00]

right

[ritajie]

100% agree

[ghost]

+1

[Kayleexx]

fr

[PetoriousBIG]

+1. I love my username, but I imagine most people within my organization would rather see my actual name.

[MolotovCherry]

Surprised this isn't an option yet. It creates more work for the users just to have to create new accounts with a certain username just so it can display correctly. And if your username is already taken, you're out of luck

[Conpago-Jayden]

+1

[nhooman]

+1

Migrated the code from GitLab to GitHub and this is a major issue for us. Please fix.

[bobey]

+1

[Kasp42]

+1

[Varrah]

Please refrain from posting +1, instead, ensure you've pushed the "Top" arrow button on the original post above.

[Varrah]

Also, please spread the word between your colleagues in all your organizations, so that they come and push the top button as well. Let's lift it up to the GitHub devs attention. Any other ideas appreciated.

[Bohousek007]

Nice! That would be amazing.

[opetany93]

+1

[maddendd-uob]

Up voted. We are in the process of migrating from BitBucket to GitHub and this is a real quality of life issue. Unrecognisable usernames everywhere rather than real names.

[O5ten]

Up voted. We are in the process of migrating from BitBucket to GitHub and this is a real quality of life issue. Unrecognisable usernames everywhere rather than real names.

It was the exact same thing for us and took some time to get used to.

[cyberfury10]

There is browser extension which solves this issue. Check my comment above for more info.

[Norbz]

+1

[ThisIsStupidGitHub]

I see They give zero f***s about the display name after 2.5 YEARS! I mean wtf is even the Point of having a "Public Profile" name if it isn't used ANYWHERE that matters?

[zzJinux]

Related: /~https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/4168

[TeTiRoss]

+

[joao-squillace-razr]

+1

[RoyTinker]

This won't be fixed because it's an upsell opportunity for GitHub. They want organizations to use EMU (enterprise managed users) which costs more.

[AnakinPt]

This is not related. When I hover the username I see the name of the user. I just want to see the person name instead of an identifier

[gitclonehama]

2025, still wondering why we hover to reveal name with the username as default view in discussions when it should logically be the other way around.

I want to see "Hama Pashazadeh" as the default view and "hamacodes" upon hovering, not the backwards state it is in currently.

GitHub, pls fix.

[cyberfury10]

There is browser extension which solves this issue. Check my comment above for more info.

[colindean]

My org is considering GHEC and must use Enterprise Managed Users, resulting in unintelligible, undifferentiable, multi-character usernames akin to an eight-character hash. This will impede communication, even with autocomplete suggestions usable through regular names. Hover cards aren't a fast solution, either.

Has anyone developed a browser extension that can replace a username with the user's profile name on each page load?

[cyberfury10]

Yes, I have developed browser extension to solve this. Check my comment above for more info.

[AnakinPt]

I confirm. I had to use this plugin and works perfectly.
It's dumb that we can't pick what string to render... Just stupid.

[colindean]

Thanks for the link. I'll take a look.

I'm looking for something specifically scoped to GitHub.com so I don't have to think about permissions much.

[mr-jolly]

This still means that you have to have every dev install a browser extension which to me seems like a hassle. Not to mention different companies lock things down differently.

[Spunkie]

I'm looking for something specifically scoped to GitHub.com so I don't have to think about permissions much.

@colindean Scoped to just GH or not, you can be sure using an extension like this is a quick way to get fired. Especially for a GHEC or any other high security biz.