After inability to register a desired username at Gmail, I settled with an alternative. But in years passed I haven't stopped wondering why I can register this screen name with every service, but Gmail.
Recently, this has come up in a conversation with a couple of friends and it resulted in a number of experiments with Gmail registration system. Findings were quite interesting and were leaving more questions than answers. The following are the things that we found:
- 1. Certain male names with prefix 'f1' cannot be registered with Gmail. One would assume they're taken, but they aren't. We've sent test emails to these accounts, but we get back "This Gmail user does not exist". Examples: f1rich, f1richard, f1robert, f1alexander, f1nate, f1sasha.
- 2. Female name with prefix 'f1' can easily be registered and marked as available in ajaxy registration form. Examples: f1sally, f1catherine, f1becky, f1molly, f1britney.
- 3. If you swap 'f1' with 'f2' for male names, names become available.
Why would Google keep these usernames reserved?
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