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.

[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.

[koshera]

Still can't believe this is not an option yet...

[Mehmango]

+1

[pgcd]

+1

[LindseyCSA]

This has been unanswered since 2022. How does this get put in front of GitHub developers for consideration? I'm just in the process of setting up our company GitHub organization and this is already an issue. We have outside contractors as well, who also have visibility to GitHub usernames that are at worst potentially offensive, and at best simply not usable to identify who a particular member actually is without too much effort.

[mattseymour]

This seems like a no brainer option in github for enterprises, why there is still no comment or movement on this in over 3 years is not great.

[Yokomoko]

Insanity that Github still hasn't implemented this for Organizations or Enterprises.

[opetany93]

+1

[jeremieamstutz]

I fixed it with a chrome extension: https://github.com/jeremieamstutz/github-real-names

[vgarcia007]

This really solves the problem for me. Using it makes life on GitHub so much easier. Thank you!

[jeremieamstutz]

Thanks :)

[ThePants999]

Oohh, this is superb, thanks.

[clutchwave]

Adding my +1 for this. I have my username set to my original business name, been using this for over 13 years... but if I want to use something like Giscus for comments, none of my readers will know who I am.

This should be a very very simple thing to set. Not sure what the holdup is. Just have it print my Name as the Display name....

[mattseymour]

4 years on and still no true solution. Thanks @github.

We are a team of 40 and keeping track of users is becoming a p.i.t.a. I dont know how larger orgs are managing to do user management.

Please add support for users real names enforcable over an org.

[PressXtoChris]

GitHub has added the ability to display profile names alongside usernames in GitHub Enterprise:

https://github.blog/changelog/2026-02-13-you-can-now-show-profile-names-alongside-user-handles/

https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-cloud@latest/admin/managing-your-enterprise-account/configuring-user-display-names-for-your-enterprise

[tkaepp]

Love the change to enable it on the enterprise and the org! It helps our org and was one of the most basic features that was missing after moving to github.

An improvment for our enterprise would be that we could configure to select the Display Name from our SSO Provider. Or as an alternative that you can set a display name per enterprise or organisation.

At the moment everybody needs to have the Display Name public on the internet. There are privacy concerns to that.

[mattseymour]

+1 on this. It's great to see this feature in the platform but it only works if users have a display name set. It still doesnt help me identify users with no display name and obscure account names.

…

On Mon, 16 Feb 2026 at 08:51, Tobias Käppeli ***@***.***> wrote: Love the change to enable it on the enterprise and the org! It helps our org and was one of the most basic features that was missing after moving to github. An improvment for our enterprise would be that we could configure to select the Display Name from our SSO Provider. Or as an alternative that you can set a display name per enterprise or organisation. At the moment everybody needs to have the Display Name public on the internet. There are privacy concerns to that. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#10840 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAKEKOVUFLX7NATTYEWTXA34MGAI7AVCNFSM5NHYJ662U5DIOJSWCZC7NNSXTOSENFZWG5LTONUW63SDN5WW2ZLOOQ5TCNJYGIYTCOBX> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[airtonix]

I think we can all give up.

Microsoft owns github (little g).

It's a safe bet all outstanding bugs won't be fixed.

[Ghedeon]

Can't you ask your copilot to code this feature or something @github? 4 years, jesus christ.