Username lookup › Reddit

Reddit username lookup

Got a Reddit username and want to know who is behind it? A username search may uncover social media profiles, dating site profiles, online accounts, photos, and other public web results associated with the username you searched, where available. Reddit is a good place to start: handles there can never be changed and are never reused, so the one you have still belongs to the same account it always did.

Username search

Search a Username Across Reddit (& Other Platforms)

Check a handle against Reddit, other social networks, forums and dating sites in one search.

100% confidential - the person you search will not know.

What can a Reddit username reveal?

A username search may uncover social media profiles, dating site profiles, online accounts, photos, and other public web results associated with the username you searched, where available.

  • Social profiles
    Other accounts using that same handle
  • Dating profiles
    Where the handle appears on dating sites
  • Photos
    Profile pictures you can reverse-search
  • Public web results
    Forum posts, comments and mentions

Reddit helps here - profiles are viewable without an account, so a match is easy to confirm.

What it will not give you: a home address, phone number or legal name. Not from a handle on its own - anything promising that is guessing.

How Reddit usernames work

Two things decide how useful a handle is: how easily it can be changed, and whether somebody else can end up holding it.

How stable is a Reddit handle? Permanent - cannot be changed or reused
Can the handle be changed? Never
“Once a username is finalized, it can't be changed in any way, including its capitalization.”
Viewable without an account? Yes - public posts, comments, usernames and profiles are viewable without an account
Profile address reddit.com/user/{username}
Can a released handle be reused? No — When an account is deleted the username is removed from Reddit and becomes unusable - it cannot be claimed by anyone else, including you.
Allowed characters Hyphens are supported in usernames (confirmed via Reddit's own changelog for username mentions).
Username vs display name Reddit profiles also have a changeable display name, so the u/ username is the stable identifier and the display name is not.
Underlying account ID Reddit's API gives every account a fullname beginning t2_ - a type prefix plus a globally unique ID, distinct from the username.

Sources: support.reddithelp.com · support.reddithelp.com · support.reddithelp.com · support.reddithelp.com · reddit.com · support.reddithelp.com . Facts we could not verify against official documentation are deliberately left out.

How to search a Reddit username

  1. Try the profile address directly. Load reddit.com/user/{username} with the handle in place. A profile means the handle is taken; an error means it is free or the account is gone.
  2. Search the handle as an exact phrase. Put it in quotation marks, and add Reddit as a second term to surface mentions on forums, link pages and directories.
  3. Reverse-image-search the profile photo if you find one. Recycled profile pictures connect accounts far more reliably than handles do.
  4. Check the other platforms. Across 101,179 username pairs known to belong to the same person, spanning 36 web communities, the same username was chosen 59% of the time. Working through the platforms below is often faster than digging deeper into one.

How much does a matching handle actually prove?

It depends almost entirely on how distinctive the handle is. A study of about 10 million usernames from Google Profiles and eBay found people pick a small number of related handles and reuse them, and that how identifying a handle is depends on its entropy: distinctive strings link accounts reliably, common ones do not. In plain terms: a match on an unusual handle is strong evidence two accounts belong to the same person, while a match on something common is close to meaningless - plenty of unrelated people share it.

Treat any match as a lead to confirm rather than proof. Corroborate it with something else: the same profile photo, a consistent display name, a linked website, a location or an interest that fits what you already know.

Research: Zafarani & Liu, 'Connecting Corresponding Identities across Communities', ICWSM 2009 · Perito, Castelluccia, Kaafar & Manils, 'How Unique and Traceable are Usernames?', PETS 2011

Reddit username FAQ

Can you find someone by their Reddit username?

Often, yes - if they reuse that handle somewhere else, which most people do. Reddit profiles are publicly viewable, so the quickest check is loading the profile address (reddit.com/user/{username}) and searching the handle in quotation marks. Reddit is the most reliable of the major platforms for username tracing: the handle can never be changed and is never recycled, so a Reddit username found today is the same account it always was.

Can a Reddit username be changed?

Reddit does not allow username changes at all - not even the capitalisation. The only way to use a different name is to create a new account. This matters for identification: the more often a handle can change, the weaker it is as a long-term identifier for the same person.

Can someone else take a Reddit username after it is given up?

When an account is deleted the username is removed from Reddit and becomes unusable - it cannot be claimed by anyone else, including you. That makes a Reddit handle unusually trustworthy - the name maps to one account, permanently.

Is the Reddit display name the same as the username?

Reddit profiles also have a changeable display name, so the u/ username is the stable identifier and the display name is not.

Do people use the same username on Reddit as elsewhere?

Often. Across 101,179 username pairs known to belong to the same person, spanning 36 web communities, the same username was chosen 59% of the time. A further 6% added a suffix, 1% a prefix, and 2% were small edit-distance variants. That is what makes cross-platform username search work at all - though how much a match proves depends on how distinctive the handle is.

Username rules on other platforms

For the free search methods, what a handle can and cannot reveal, and the legal limits, see the username lookup guide.