The Facebook Blog

Everyone has a name, but some people are known by more than one. I am one of them. I grew up in Taiwan and all of my friends in Taiwan recognize me by my Chinese name, while the friends I've made after I moved abroad know me by my English name.

Both are part of my real identity, but until now I could only show one name in my Facebook account. This made it difficult for all of my friends to connect with me. I've even received messages from old friends asking who I was before they would approve my friend request because they didn't recognize my... name, even though the profile photo looked familiar to them.

Last week, we added the ability for you to display such alternate names on Facebook. Previously you could associate another name with your account, so friends who knew you by that name could find you in search results. Now, you can further choose to also display your alternate name so it is visible on your profile, in search results, in friend requests and on other places on the site. It also will appear in parenthesis alongside your primary name.



In addition to names in different languages, you may want to include an alternate name if you have a maiden name, a different married name or are otherwise known by more than one name.

To enter an alternate name, go to your "Account Settings" page here. Check the box for displaying your alternate name if you also want it to be shown on the site.



With this change, we hope that all of you with multiple names, in any language, will be able to connect with even more of your friends.


Sophia, who works on internationalization for Facebook, is excited to connect with more of her friends.

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不用再問我是誰

每個人至少都有一個名字，但是就是有些人的名字卻不止一個。很不巧，我就是其中的一個。在台灣渡過我的前半生，之後選擇浪跡四海；未來呢？還沒有人知道。因此多數台灣親朋好友、鄰家大叔大嬸、後巷裡的黑狗兄等等，識得的呢是本人的中文名號，周遊各地結識的朋友們，統一以我的英文名字稱呼我。其實，不管中文或英文名，這兩個名字還不都是我。只是到目前為止，在我的 Facebook 個人檔案上，我只能選擇叫 Sophia，或是淑慧，無奈的是，不管選擇哪個，總會有大半的朋友在 Facebook 上找不到或認不出我。一些陳年老友收到我的 Facebook 交友邀請，覺得徐娘半老的相片看起來真眼熟，可是就是想不出哪個朋友名叫 Sophia，還得想辦法客氣地旁敲側擊地找答案。


上週 Facebook 做了項人性化的改動，讓大家可以在 Facebook 上選擇同時顯示廣為人知的別名了。 其實，之前大家已經可以在帳號設定下中加入別名，不過這資料只會出現在朋友搜尋結果中，方便朋友搜尋辨認。從現在開始，除了搜尋結果之外，大家可以進一步決定是否將我們的別名也顯示在個人檔案、交友邀請、朋友推薦通知與其他地方等等，減少確認時的困惑。



除了中文、外文名字之外，婚後改名冠夫姓的、想補充娘家姓資料的或有其他別名的，都可以利用這個功能，讓朋友間的相認聯繫更輕鬆。

準備好輸入你的別名資料了嗎？只要到你的「帳號設定」頁面，輸入別名後，記得勾選「請同時顯示在我的個人檔案和搜尋結果」選項就行了。



希望這個功能的改良能夠協助許多像我一樣的朋友， 在 Facebook 找回更多失聯已久的朋友。


淑慧，Facebook 在地化經理，期待與更多的昔日好友重逢話當年。