Given names

[Kolya]

When you ask people what their name should be 9/10 they choose a stupid name. Names should be given, not chosen.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Don't think you'll have much support for that.  Wouldn't be too difficult to edit code to allow admins only to set display names for members.

[Kolya]

You don't need to change code for that, merely disable the setting under Features and Options: "Allow users to edit their displayed name".

That's not what I was thinking about though. I'd rather simulate the way nick names are given in real life conversations by peers. Someone suggests a name and then it's confirmed by repetition.
You're right of course, there won't be much support for that. Not if you're going to take control away that people currently have.
I'll chew on this for a while and maybe write a mod for my forum.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Yep, forgot about that.  Believe I saw a forum where real names were required, admin would not activate a registration if it had an obviously stupid name, and members were not allowed to edit display name.  Don't know if there's a practical way of doing what you want.  You'd have to start the process by assigning a nick to a member, then either track usage or have some sort of voting system, like karma.  Maybe you could build it on the karma feature.

[Kolya]

I was thinking of starting new users with a random name generator, then hook into Arantor's mention feature. It just might work @Sir Osis of Liver|DeBeers

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Never tried the mentions mod, don't have it and he's pulled all his mods.  You'd need a lot of activity for something like that to work.

[Kolya]

Why would activity matter? A group of 3 can give each other nicks. And the rest would just stick with their randomly generated names.

It's too bad he pulled his mods, but I realize now that the mention mod I have is actually by Dragoon: https://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=3860

Also I thought I read that mentions made it into 2.1 core?

[Sir Osis of Liver]

The mod is interesting.  If you can track the tags that'd be a voting system.

Yes, 2.1 does have a mentions feature, no idea how it works.  It's in Admin > Configuration > Features and Options.