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LinkedIn username generator

Turn a word or two into LinkedIn handle ideas that fit the rules: 3–100 characters, only what LinkedIn accepts. Free, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.

Your idea

Two words give better ideas than one. Everything is combined on this device.

Type a word above to see handle ideas.

The rules

LinkedIn public profile URLs are 3–100 characters and may use letters, digits and hyphens, but no dots or underscores.

  • Length: 3–100 characters
  • Separators: -
  • Not allowed: spaces, and a separator at the start or end

Every idea above already passes these checks.

How to find a LinkedIn handle you can keep

Start from the word you want to be known by rather than the handle you wish were free. On LinkedIn the seed is almost always your own name, and the real work is deciding what to add to it when your name has gone. Everything the generator offers has already been filtered against the format rules, so the only question left is whether somebody got there first.

  1. Enter one or two seed words: your name, your niche, or the thing you make. Two short words beat one long one, because LinkedIn stops you at 100 characters.
  2. Pick a separator you can say out loud. LinkedIn accepts hyphens and nothing else, so anything you cannot dictate down a phone line is a liability.
  3. Ignore the urge to go shorter than 3 characters. LinkedIn rejects anything under that, which is why no suggestion here is that short.
  4. Update the URL in your profile settings and fix your CV and email signature in the same sitting, because the old address stops working immediately.
  5. Paste the candidate into LinkedIn’s own settings page, which is the only place that will tell you whether it is already in use.
  6. Take the same string on the other networks you post to, even the ones you are not using yet. Matching handles are far cheaper to hold than to reclaim.

LinkedIn’s handle rules, in full

LinkedIn has no @ handle. What you are choosing is the tail of your public profile URL, the part after linkedin.com/in/, which is what goes on a CV, an email signature and a conference badge. That makes the format worth reading once rather than discovering at signup: 3 to 100 characters, letters and digits, plus hyphens.

  • Length: 3 to 100 characters. A hundred characters is four times what TikTok allows, and it is a trap: a URL nobody can read out over the phone is worse than a slightly duller surname.
  • Characters: letters and digits, plus hyphens. Spaces, emoji and punctuation such as ! or & are refused.
  • The URL resolves regardless of case, so capitalising a word will not win you a slug somebody else is already using.
  • Hyphens are the only break available, with no dots and no underscores, which is why the LinkedIn convention is firstname-lastname-something rather than the dotted style Instagram encourages.
  • Change the custom URL and the old one stops resolving at once, so every CV and signature already in circulation points at nothing.

Where LinkedIn handles go wrong

The LinkedIn-specific failure is keyword stuffing, because a hundred characters feels like an invitation to describe yourself. A URL that reads like a job title is unreadable on a printed CV and dates the moment you change role. The quieter failure is leaving the automatically generated URL in place, the one with a random string on the end, and then wondering why the link looks untrustworthy pasted into an email.

What this tool cannot tell you

This tool suggests strings that fit the format. It has no idea who you are competing with, and on LinkedIn a common surname means the clean slugs went to people who joined in 2010, so the honest fallback is adding your discipline or your city rather than a digit.

  • Try firstname-lastname first, then add one distinguishing word, a city or a field, before you consider anything else.
  • Set it before your next application, because the old URL breaks the moment you change it and a dead link on a CV is expensive.
  • Keep it short enough to say on a call. That is the real test, not the 100 character ceiling.
The rest of the job

You just fixed one post. Now do the month.

The linkedin username generator solves one piece of one post. OctoSpark plans, writes and schedules the whole calendar across every network you use, publishes it for you, and reports what actually performed.

  • One calendar for every network
  • Schedule once, publish everywhere
  • Drafts written in your own voice
  • See what actually performed
Open the full sign-up page

No card needed. These tools stay free either way.

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Frequently asked questions

How this tool works, what it cannot do, and what happens to what you put into it.

  • What are LinkedIn's username rules?

    LinkedIn public profile URLs are 3–100 characters and may use letters, digits and hyphens, but no dots or underscores. Every suggestion here is checked against those limits before it is shown, so nothing in the list can be rejected for its format.

  • Does this tell me whether a handle is free?

    No. LinkedIn does not expose a public lookup we can query, so treat each idea as a candidate and try it in the signup or profile settings page.

  • Is anything sent to a server?

    No. The suggestions are built by string transformations in your own browser. Your seed word is never transmitted, logged or stored.

  • What if every idea I like is taken?

    Add a second keyword (a niche, a city, a format) rather than trailing digits. Two real words read as a brand and stay memorable; "yourname2481" reads as a fallback and is harder to say out loud.

  • Is my data private?

    Yes. This tool does its work in your browser, so whatever you type, paste or upload stays on your device. Nothing is sent to our servers, which is also why it keeps working if you go offline after the page has loaded.

  • Is this really free?

    Yes. Every tool here is free with no account, no credit card and no usage cap. They exist so that the people who need our scheduling product find us, which only works if the tools are genuinely useful on their own.

  • Do I need an account?

    No. Open the page and use it. An account is only for OctoSpark itself, where you plan, schedule and publish a whole calendar rather than fixing one post at a time.

  • Can I use the output commercially?

    Yes. Anything you produce here is yours, including for client and commercial work. We claim no rights over it and we do not watermark it.