Your Steam profile may be hiding an embarrassing surprise. We’ll show you how to get rid of it.
Some decisions made in your youth come back to haunt you mercilessly, especially when they’re visible to the whole world on the internet. That’s exactly what happened recently to a Steam user on Reddit. In his desperate post, he revealed a very special piece of digital baggage.
His Steam profile boasts the unflattering alias Footjob Receiver. Yes, you read that correctly. Apparently, he wanted the whole world to know early on that he has nothing against, well, affectionate contact with feet.
Can anyone tell me how I can remove this from my profile?
byu/flushedfran inSteam
☻
The post quickly went viral, garnering over 43,000 upvotes, and many of you will probably recognize yourselves in it. After all, we all created our Steam accounts when we were 13 or 14 and chose a name that we thought was incredibly cool at the time. Or at least kind of funny.
I speak from painful experience, by the way:MasterKiller_007 and s37h g3ck0 were my incredibly cool pseudonyms in the early 2000s.
But don’t panic: You don’t have to spend the rest of your life roaming the online world as xXsNiPeRkInG420Xx or even Footjob Receiver. We’ll show you how to quickly clean up your digital reputation.
How to get rid of embarrassing names
Fortunately, most of your naming sins can be eliminated relatively easily. Here are the three areas you can tackle:
1. Change your current profile name
This is the easiest step and works the same everywhere, whether on a PC, mobile app, or website.
- Open Steam and click on your username in the top right corner.
- Select View Profile.
- Click on Edit Profile on the right.
- Enter your new, glorious name in the Profile Name field.
- Click on the blue Save button at the bottom – done.
2. Delete the list of old aliases
The real problem for the Reddit user wasn’t their current name, but the list of their previous aliases, which was visible to everyone. Steam saves your last ten profile names – which can quickly lead to embarrassing revelations.
Here’s how to get rid of the ghosts of the past:
- Go to your Steam profile page.
- Next to your current profile name, you’ll see a small down arrow. Click on it.
- A menu with your previous names will pop up.
- At the bottom, you will find the option to delete previous aliases.
- One click, one confirmation, and the haunting is over.
3. Customize your custom URL
Many users set their own URL for their profile (steamcommunity.com/id/YourName). If you’ve made a mistake here too:
- Open Edit Profile again.
- You can set a new URL in the Profile URL field.
The final boss: Change your Steam account name
But what if your unchangeable login name is the problem? Maybe you chose a terrible name and don’t want to see it every time you log in. Officially, Valve says: Tough luck, a change is not possible.
However, the reality is different. Numerous users report that Steam Support makes exceptions for well-founded requests. Security concerns in particular can be a valid reason.
So if you have a valid reason for changing your account name, it’s worth submitting a ticket to Steam Support. Be friendly, explain your situation in detail, and with a little luck, you’ll get help.
