Is there a way, that I am not finding, to have a vanity profile name?
On LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc I am KellCOMnet; on stackoverflow I am /users/464228/christopher-kelly.
If this is not currently available, what is the community’s thoughts on this feature?
You should be able to edit your username. If you want to, go to your profile and click on the "Edit profile and settings" tab on the top of the page. Here is a direct link to the editing page.
On your profile, go up to the top:
Go to the "Edit profile and settings tab":
Edit your display name in the box:
Save at the bottom of the page:
Now you have a better name:
You can set your username to whatever you want. I do! The issue with /user/username is usernames are not unique on SE and it would need a massive re-design of how we think of profiles.
Your profile is actually linked to your userid (and in DB terms that's pretty much your primary key), and your user name is something changeable (every 30 days cause some people abuse this and we can't have nice things because of this) at any point.
SO you already have a vanity profile name (and I set my "real name" to Firstname "Journeyman Geek" Sirname - cause no one would recognise my real name), and a real name field you can set/change to anything.
Displaying your username as /user/vanityname is implausible since there's no constraint on that being unique and that's going to break a ton of accounts if changed.
The "display name" field you're referring to is a "vanity profile name". For example, see my username; the way I set it is by simply setting the usual "display name".
There is also a "real name" field at the bottom of your profile settings; it's used in a completely different manner (for Stack Overflow Jobs and Teams). It is not shown publicly anywhere (except within your Developer Story and within any Teams you're a member of).
