Tag: Names

UPDATED! How to Change Your Avatar Name in Second Life: A Step by Step Guide

IMPORTANT NOTE: On August 3rd, 2022, Linden Lab announced that avatar name changes would now be available to Basic (i.e. free) Second Life account holders! Here’s the full announcement. They have also adjusted the price for this service, depending on what level of SL account you have:

– Basic: US$49.99
– Premium: US$34.99
– Premium Plus: US$`14.99

The instructions on how to do this are unchanged, read on to find out how to do this!

Today, Linden Lab finally released a much asked-for and eagerly-awaited feature: the ability to change your avatar name!

Given the ongoing interest in “last names” among our community, we’ve reinstated “last names” effective today as a new option for Second Life Premium Members. If you have a Premium account, you will be able to visit https://secondlife.com/my/account to change your first, last or both names. In the true spirit of the original “last names” option last seen in 2010, participating Residents will once again be able to choose from a rotating list of available last names. Some names may only be available for a limited time, so if you see one you like then you might want to claim it quickly! 

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you …Bumbly Rumpler:

Yes, that is her actual, honest-to-God, legacy name. (I honestly do not know what I was thinking at the time.) Such an unfortunate name to be saddled with, for such an elegant lady. I have been itching to change it for years, and now I finally have my opportunity!

Now that Linden Lab has—finally—made it possible to change your avatar’s legacy name, I thought I would draw up some step-by-step instructions on how to change your name.

Before we begin, you do need to understand the difference between your avatar’s legacy name (the name you chose for your avatar when you created your Second Life account) and your avatar’s display name (which you can change to pretty much anything you want, one change per week). What I am talking about here is changing your avatar’s legacy name, the one you picked out when creating her.

Step 1: Upgrade Your Account to Premium

First: you will need to upgrade the Second Life account associated with your avatar to Premium. (You will not be able to change your avatar’s legacy name if you are using a free, Basic account.)

So open up a web browser, log in to the Second Life website, click on Login in the upper right-hand menu on your screen, and enter your avatar name and password. You will be taken to your account dashboard.

At the dashboard, click on Account in the left-hand menu, then click on Premium Membership:

Note that you have several options when upgrading your account from Basic to Premium: annual, quarterly, or monthly payment. You will have to pay for at least one month’s worth of Premium membership in order to change your avatar’s name, in addition to a separate fee.

Step 2: Click on Change Name

Look in the left-hand column of your dashboard at https://secondlife.com/my/account (you should still be signed in from the previous step). You will see a new option called Change Name. Click on it.

You will see the following information, including the charge for the name change: US$39.99.

Click on the Next Step button to continue.

Step 3: Choose a New First and/or Last Name

To change your first name, check the checkbox next to the words Change First Name in the TOP BOX, and type your new first name into the text box underneath. (If you wish to keep your legacy first name, uncheck the checkbox.)

To change your last name, check the checkbox next to the words Change Last Name in the BOTTOM BOX, then click one of the radio buttons next to the list of last names presented to you. (If you wish to keep your legacy last name, uncheck the checkbox and leave your original last name, which appears at the bottom of the list, as the selected name.

If you are changing both your first and last names, then when you are done, your screen should look something like this:

Remember, you must be logged out of your account on your viewer before submitting your name change!

When you’re ready, click on the Review Changes button.

Step 4: Confirm Your Name Change

You will be presented with your old and new names:

If you are satisfied with this, click on the Continue to Checkout button. Otherwise, click on the Go Back link and start over again.

Step 5: Pay for Your New Name

Review your charges and click the blue Buy Now button. (Note: the current exchange rates between the Canadian and American dollars are killing me. CA$62.33 is a lot more than I expected to have to spend to change my name! I’m quite sure other people using non-American currencies are feeling the pinch, too.)

Step 6: Success!

If you are successful, you will see the following familiar message on your screen:

And finally: a message of congratulations on your name change:

The message reads:

Your account name has been changed to Moesha Heartsong

It may require a few hours for this change to take place in all of the Second Life systems, viewer and web site. In the meantime you may see a mix of your old name and new name. If you continue to see your old name anywhere in Second Life after 24 hours, you may file a support ticket.

Congratulations on your new identity!

Now, ladies and gentlemen, may I present my rechristened avatar…Moesha Heartsong:

And there you have it! Six easy steps to change your Second Life avatar name. If you still have questions, Linden Lab has published a Changing Your Username FAQ, with answers to the most commonly-asked questions Second Life users may have.

Editorial: Why Is the Second Life Avatar Name Change Feature Taking So Long?

We want it NOW, not later!!!

You might be interested to know that my blogposts about being able to change your Second Life avatar name are among my most visited (notably, this one, with over 9,000 views so far).

We have been waiting a long, long, long time for Linden Lab to release this eagerly-awaited feature. The last time I wrote about it, I quoted a Linden Lab blogpost that said:

Soon it will be possible to change the name of a Second Life account. This is one of our Residents’ most requested features and we’re working furiously to make it available by the end of January. 

Soon?!?? It’s already March and we are still waiting. I don’t know about you, but I am starting to get fed up.

At the very least, give us a new timeline and/or deadline, Linden Lab. This is getting ridiculous already.

UPDATED! Second Life Name Changes Contest: You Could Win a Free Name Change for Your Avatar! (Also: What Linden Lab Will Charge For Name Changes When They Become Available in 2020)

Second Life has announced the details of their Name Changes Contest:

We will make Name Changes available to Premium account holders in early 2020.  It will be possible to change First Name, Last Name, or both. There will be a one-time fee per Name Change. Just like in the olden times, First Name will be free-form, Last Name will be from a list – and here is where this contest comes in: we want your help coming up with the first batch of Last Names! 

…

Three submissions per entry. No reusing of old names. From all of the suggestions, we’ll pick five (5), and those five lucky Residents will be able to change their names completely free of charge (or designate another account for the name change)! You will not need to be Premium to participate or to win. The contest will run December 16th through January 15th, and participation details will be announced shortly. 

So, put your thinking caps on, get creative, and enter the contest! Here’s the official contest entry form. And here are all the official contest rules and regulations. Good luck!

Oh, and somewhat tucked away in that official contest information and policies document is a clue as to how much Linden Lab is going to charge for name changes:

5. PRIZE.

A.Description of Prizes. One free Last Names change (estimated value at US$39.99 plus $11.99 to represent the value of a month of Premium Membership) on an account of Winner’s choice.

B. Estimated Total Prize package value: US$51.98. Exact value dependent on account status.

So, expect to pay US$40 to change the name of your Second Life avatar. Or, if you are going to upgrade to Premium for just one month in order to take advantage of the upcoming name change feature, expect to pay US$52 in total.

The cost is more than I expected it to be; however, there is such a pent-up demand in the system for avatar name changes, that I still expect that people are going to shell out for the privilege of a brand new name. I suspect this will be a significant enough perk to tempt people to part with their cash, and Linden Lab will certainly make money from it!

UPDATE Jan. 18th, 2020: Inara Pey has an update with all the latest information about the upcoming ability to change your name. Apparently, Linden Lab received over 6,000 entries for the contest!

What’s in a Name? And Why Do So Many Virtual Worlds Have Such Unfortunate Names?

Did you know that Sansar comes from the Hindi संसार and means world? It’s a very fitting name for a virtual world (even if you do have to sort through many Indian-language hits when searching “Sansar” on Google and YouTube).

Yes, there is a Hindi movie called Sansar

High Fidelity is another example of a good name. The association is that the virtual world is a high-fidelity recreation of the real world. (It is also the name of the popular 2000 movie starring John Cusack.)

I used to joke that a virtual world was not complete unless it had an unfortunate brand name. Some examples from the past and present:

  • Cloud Party (Now there’s a name that will attract serious business users and venture capital. Not.)
  • DiveReal (So, your virtual world is a “dive”?)
  • Galaxity (which is a little too close to “laxative” for my comfort)
  • Pararea (which sounds like a gum disease, or a form of diarrhea)
  • Second Life (Sorry, Philip Rosedale! This is a name which I have always disliked because, to me, it emphasized that virtual worlds somehow took you away from your “first life” or real life.)
  • Somnium Space (This one always reminds me of the word somnolent (which means sleepy or drowsy) and of the drug Sominex and therefore it has those associations to me!)
  • There (Seriously?!?? You ever try to Google “There” to find this one? Another example of a common word used as a brand name for a virtual world was Space, the former name for Sinespace. I’m glad that Adam Frisby fixed that.)
  • Twinity (This gets my vote for the stupidest name ever. It didn’t help that their logo looked like, well, a pair of breasts!)

Then there are other names which do not really help to differentiate the product from other, similarly-named ones (like Oasis).

A good name is creative, descriptive, and original. It helps if the associated website domain name is available (hello, MATERIA.ONE? At least they finally grabbed materiaone.com). It also helps if it is unique enough so that search engines can find it easily without you having to dig through dozens of false hits (see Oasis, There, and Space, above).

So, what do you think? What’s in a name? What names do you think are terrible? Sound off in the comments, or join the ongoing discussion and debate about all aspects of virtual worlds on the RyanSchultz.com Discord server.