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Comment by eminence32 | Hacker News Reader

At my company (of about 22k people worldwide), your username is derived from the first and last letters in your name, and numbers appended to make it unique. VIP's don't get to pick their username as far as I know. Intel is large enough that I would guess that their default naming is also algorithmic, but apparently some VIPs like Brendan are able to get nice usernames.

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I know both Apple and Google let you pick your username. Elsewhere I’ve gotten generic stuff that I’ve created aliases for.

Amazon assigns you an algorithmic name but you can request anything you want that isn't already taken. My friend got a three letter email addy within just the last couple of years.

My previous technical account manager got his three initials at amazon.com. One day I might join Amazon, but I don't think I'll get my initials (A. W. S.)

There used to be a director at Google with this name, which in a way made me not want to work there because I'd have to put up with a 2nd choice email.

(Sometimes I get her personal email to my gmail.)

It was the same deal when I got my first job out of college (20+ years ago) at Motorola (somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000 employees at the time).

Requested my first name, it was available. I constantly got people asking questions in amazement at my email address - how did I do it??? I would just shrug and say "I asked".

Just because you get assigned an address doesn't mean you can't ask for another one. :)

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