How I got my Github handle, ‘trisha’

Github has a name squatter policy, which basically means that you’re not allowed to sit on a username without plans to actually use your account.

My friend Yefim (pronounced yehfeem) was the one who told me about this, as well as directed me to this article by Lucis that was really helpful: “How I got the Github Username of my Dreams.”

That means that if you see an account with no public activity, there’s a chance it doesn’t have any private activity either, and it might be worth asking if that name can be freed up for you.

So, I filled out a support ticket:

18 days later, I got this response:

Afterward, I let Support know that I had deleted my additional account in question (turns out I only had one other), and sent the below response right afterward:

5 days later, I got this response:

By that time, I had opened my ticket when I was in Los Angeles, was flown out to Philadelphia for an on-site, and was in Nashville for a layover on my flight back to Los Angeles. In each location, I had checked the https://github.com/trisha URL at least once, for a total of maybe 5 times overall, just in case it got released before I was aware. However, I’m not sure if my traffic was the only contributor toward ‘a lot of activity around that username’ but it was still really cool that Github Support had that insight.

Otherwise, the only person who knew that I was going after ‘trisha’ was Yefim, and only one other friend knew that I was trying to change my Github handle from ‘trishapan’ to ‘something else’.

Comment below if you end up getting the name that you want, and good luck!

P.S. Expect Support delays during the below 2021 dates: