Yeah, it's pretty obvious that online usernames say a lot about someone's age and personality. Heck, they often say a lot about a variety of other things too,

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that online usernames say a lot about someone's age and personality. Heck, they often say a lot about a variety of other things too, like their gender and political affiliation. Either way, while it was fairly obvious to anyone who runs forums or other communities, it's nice to see some actual research that backs up our common sense intuitions here. On another note though, do you what would also be interesting to study here? The correlation between avatars and age, psychology, etc. Because let's face it, the picture someone choses to go with their profile (or the in game model they design or choose for an online game) says at least as much about them as their name does. A lot of people do tend to choose pictures or characters that look a bit like what they look like in real life (or in a lot of kids case, what they wished they looked like). P.S. Am I the only one somewhat surprised about the 'ages figured from usernames tend to match what was entered on registration' aspect? Given that a lot of games and communities are 13+ only (or perhaps older), I'd expect a lot of kids to lie about their age when signing up.