People removing their surnames from their Facebook names

[asblindasabat]

I’ve seen this a few times, where friends of mine will just randomly change remove their surname from their Facebook name and add their middle name instead.

No real point to this post except for the fact I’m nosey, curious and want to know why some people do this 😂

Makes you less searchable and less identifiable.

My friends who do this are teachers, nurses and police officers.

A few of my friends who are teachers or police do this.

Yes defo for work purposes to make your profile less findable.

A few of my friends have done this after a marriage separation/divorce.

People I know who've done it, generally because:

• they are teachers or academics and don't want to be easily identifiable
• they are low-key famous and don't want to be easily identifiable
• they have experienced family issues and don't want to be easily identifiable

I did it because I worked with offenders and one of them made some comments to me about my pets that let me know they had seen my profile.

I do this. My job means that people often google my name and I prefer not having any of my social media account linked to my job, although they’re all on private account settings.

Teachers here also. It makes you less searchable but doesn't get you banned from FB - they have policies against fake names.

I did because I'm a therapist and want to keep personal social media separate from my work and not have my FB profile come up if someone searches.

I have a policeman friend who does this and the wife of a friend who cheated on him has done it too.

I’ve done this as I work in a public facing role where I don’t want some of those members of the public identifying me.

I’m a teacher and have done this because I was getting messages from parents of pupils in my class!

Sensible. I use a pseudonym instead though.

I work in public role and don't want to be found by people that meet me at work

It's not that hard to work out OP, clearly people still want to stay connected to people they choose to, but don't want to be searchable for anyone else - and that could be for a variety of reasons as people have already mentioned.

I'm a teacher. Don't want kids (or collegues) stalking me

I’ve done it because I have an unusual name and a public facing job. I don’t want some tosser with a grudge tracking me down on Facebook.

I did it when I still used Facebook and had just qualified as a Social Worker. Makes you less findable.

I have a public sector enforcement role and a surname that isn't common - so I've done it to avoid being found.

They can do it but if they change it on an existing profile where they had their full name, the URL of the page is still their first name and then surname... I never know if they realise this or not...

Obviously if they start afresh, this doesn't happen.

I do this for anonymity but having ginger hair, marrying an actor from a TV soap, moving to the USA and writing a best selling book, I don't seem to be able to shake off public scrutiny. 🙁

A lot of my old uni 'friends' have done this as they've gone on to be social workers. I can't actually remember a lot of their 'real' names.

Lots of doctors do this, reduces the risk of being stalked by patients.

OMG! Some people are unreal.