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 😂

Teachers are often advised to do this in safeguarding training so that students can't search for them. Also to make your profile pic private so that students can't take a screen grab and edit onto some inappropriate TikTok content.

I've got this. I'm a social worker and don't want to be identified or looked at by service users.

I do this and my profile picture is a generic picture of an inanimate object too. I don’t want to be found by casual searchers or children or their families whom I’ve worked with in the past. If you’re my family or a friend you could probably find me as a “friend of a friend”, and my username is obviously me (and if you know me you’d also know the inanimate object) it’s just not going to show up if you search for my actual name. Works for me.

I don't use my real name on social media.

There is a few woman on TikTok who can find people on social media and get all sorts up about them, Im sure she could find me but for the average bod why make it easier?

I've never understood why anyone would use their real name online for social media, nor the over-sharing that seems to be standard.

Have you never heard of people being googled whilst applying for jobs? I have had my FB account since Uni, at a time when you needed a Uni email address to sign up. There are things on there I do not want the wider world to link to me! My FB name is a full name but it is a nickname from a particular freidnship group in my youth. Not a name anyone would associate with me unless I gave it to them.

I work in mental health and although I'm not on fb, my colleagues who are, don't use their full names on fb so as patients can't search them.

I went on one Bumble date and ended up getting stalked for years so did it to make it harder for people to search for me and get my full info.

If however you have friends who are less discreet than you, you will still be easy to find. Most people don’t put in enough privacy settings.

Workplaces google search you and look at social media accounts to see what you have posted under your name.

there are even companies who do pre-employment checks who can do this.

So for example, workplaces will be able to see if you’re married, if you have kids, how many etc. it makes it very easy for employers to discriminate against mothers.

I have a unique surname so do it so I’m less searchable, although did have my surname on it in the past so I’m sure it still comes up 😂

Given that teens stalk every teacher they have and screen shot their photos I think it's a good idea.

My police Officer friends use their name and middle name.

I have a pretty unique name and use LinkedIn for career purposes. Some random guy messaged me a 🍆 pic through LinkedIn. I blocked and reported but then he tried to add me on fb and it became very apparent that I was not hard to find with my unique first and last names, so I did it! Although I will willingly tell any friends the story if they ask 🤣

I do to stop patients tracking me down (dr)

Service users at work know my last name, and some are people I would rather couldn't easily locate me on social media, even though my profiles are private.

My friend has his mothers maiden name as he's in a high profile social services role (think adoption court cases) everything that is public, even in the church magazine he used an alias

I've done this and it's because of my job. I don't want to be easily found by my first and last name. I have other friends who are teachers and police officers and they're the same.

Everyone I know who’s done this chose to do so after becoming newly single.

I've done it to make me less searchable and I work in a school so don't want other pupils finding me

Didn’t want pupils at the school I worked for to find me

@WhoWouldHaveThoughtThat 🤣🤣🤣

I've done it and made everything super private and no pictures of my kids on banner and profile. Definitely no nursery or school pics. I did it because a couple of friends of mine had horrible experiences. One patient emailed her twin sister and said 'hi did your sister look after me on ward x? we had a real connection and even though she said she doesn't use social media or her mobile much I needed to get in touch because I think she could be the one'. Other friends of mine had to put tape over their surname on their badge because they were getting dick pics through fb.
Some people just do not see the line at all, often when I'm making conversation they say "where do you live?" So I give the rough town and they ask where exactly then they ask where my children go to school.

I just work in general acute care, have heard some true horror stories in psych where one patient saved all the nurses photos from her fb then was showing them to other staff to prove they were actually best friends.

I was advised to do it by my work.

I do this - I work in a school and don’t want kids or parents to find me. I also don’t have my photo as my profile picture, just something generic.

I don't have a middle name 😭