Usernames with special characters - Does this serve any purpose?

Question

Usernames with special characters - Does this serve any purpose?

Hornblower409-4652 2,005

I am all for freedom of expression. But does this serve any purpose other than to make dealing with this user difficult? And I can see this being abused as a way of "Getting Crap Past the Radar".

https://free.blessedness.top/en-us/users/q-9735/

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Erland Sommarskog 127.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2025-10-26T11:15:00.6666667+00:00

Yeah, but exactly how would like to formulate the rule? Which character categories in Unicode should be permitted and which should not? Obviously all letters need to be permitted so that people can user their names. At least some punctuation characters also needs to be permitted as they are often used in names. The hammer and the sickle? No, that is indeed a bit provoking, but I am not sure that it is much of an issue.

And in what way makes the hammer and sickle make this user more difficult to use than if the name had consisted of Greek letters only?
Hornblower409-4652 2,005 Reputation points

2025-10-26T16:16:48.1666667+00:00

Your points are all valid. It was just that this example struck me as an egregious misuse of Unicode specials for no other purpose than to obfuscate and "be cool".
Erland Sommarskog 127.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2025-10-26T16:56:53.0066667+00:00

Yeah, for this particular example, there is reason to use the link "Report a concern" on the profile. "Toxic waste" is not a particularly pleasant alias.

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Erland Sommarskog 127.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2025-10-26T11:15:00.6666667+00:00

Yeah, but exactly how would like to formulate the rule? Which character categories in Unicode should be permitted and which should not? Obviously all letters need to be permitted so that people can user their names. At least some punctuation characters also needs to be permitted as they are often used in names. The hammer and the sickle? No, that is indeed a bit provoking, but I am not sure that it is much of an issue.

And in what way makes the hammer and sickle make this user more difficult to use than if the name had consisted of Greek letters only?
Hornblower409-4652 2,005 Reputation points

2025-10-26T16:16:48.1666667+00:00

Your points are all valid. It was just that this example struck me as an egregious misuse of Unicode specials for no other purpose than to obfuscate and "be cool".
Erland Sommarskog 127.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2025-10-26T16:56:53.0066667+00:00

Yeah, for this particular example, there is reason to use the link "Report a concern" on the profile. "Toxic waste" is not a particularly pleasant alias.

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Usernames with special characters - Does this serve any purpose?

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