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February 15, 2009 / Filed under: Twitter, Branding

As Twitter increases in popularity, finding your ideal username can become more difficult. Most people's first names are already taken, as well as popular brand names, company names, and common nouns, like "tree," "house," "cat," "dog," etc.

Since Twitter only allows alpha-numeric characters (with the exception of the underscore character) for usernames, new Twitter users have to get really creative with their usernames if they want something catchy, easy to remember, and that associates themselves to others.

If you're struggling to find that perfect Twitter username, consider prepending your desired username with a catchy, "action" verb, such as follow.

For example, my desired username could be "matt" since that's my first name. Twitter username "matt" is surely already taken, so I could try these variations:

• followmatt
• followmattnow
• watchmatt
• mattupdates

I've tested the availability of many common first names, prepended with "follow," and lots of them were still available. I'm guessing as Twitter continues to gain more users, these "easy to remember" usernames will soon disappear.

Even if you already have a Twitter account, it's wise to snag another one just in case one day you desire a change to your username.

I'm assuming Twitter will soon start to monitor this practice of "account squatting," which involves registering interesting-sounding usernames just to "own" them, but providing no updates. If they do decide to crack down on this behavior, you may need to decide on one username, and stick with it.