Let me @ Mention the user's first name instead of their DisplayName
Hi,
When mentioning someone with @, is it possible to use the user alias instead of the Display Name? In Slack for example, it is possible to choose whether to display the full name or the user name when being mentioned. Could be great to have it on MS Teams because it is shorter in messages where many mentions are provided.

159 comments
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MikeDogg commented
The orange 'Name, Full ***' mention makes me feel harassed and hurried. Totally unnecessary.
All we need is a short name, if it has to be orange...then so be it. 😐 -
Jason P commented
+1. The school I teach at uses FamilyName, GivenNames (Student/Teacher) as their DisplayName, and in this case, it's literally never possible to tag someone by their Given Name or Preferred Name only
Even @username would be super helpful here, since it's still more natural, or in the spirit of inclusivity, let end users specify their preferred name (or admins to do so based on some address book entry - I understand that in some settings you may not want a nickname to be changeable by an end user, e.g., in a student setting, I'm almost certain at least one student would change their name to Boaty McBoatface)
But I should be able to delete any part of a person's name post tagging, as a start
Thanks!
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Anonymous commented
yes please. We have very long aliases that include the person's Division/Department and presentationally it looks messy if the whole alias is included.
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Anonymous commented
Would like to be able to create an alias
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Roman commented
es wäre gut wenn dies möglich wäre. Die Du-Kultur hat bereits überall Einzug gehalten. der Workaround mit DHB (Delete, Home, Backspace) ist zwar schnell gemacht, trotzdem mühsam.
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Will Scarbrough commented
Please make this doable without having to repeatedly delete their last name. A suggestion: When user (A) deletes the last name of a user (B) to show only B's first name, remember that and from that point forwards whenever A types B's name show only the first name.
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Rotsen commented
Hello,
I used to do this in my teams. What I usually do is @mentioned someone then in between the display name I paste the alias, after that you can delete the other words.
Ex.
@John Lorgan - display name
John Johnny Lorgan - paste (not type) the alias in between then delete the John and Lorgan. -
JoseMariaGutierrez commented
Even, let me create a tag (like tags for mentions in Teams channels) for whatever contact that i have communicate before or is accessible to me inside Microsoft Teams. And after that, I can use that tag to mention that person. Or maybe, let me customize the mention with a right click over and change text to display (like it is made for links, where you can select what text to show for one link)... Only some ideas...
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Anonymous commented
Please make it happen.
In our chats we use many nicknames and first names are oftenly shortened.
And in my native language I need to inflect names when mentioning somebody. -
billy commented
LOL IRC bin around for over 20 years and MS implement an incomplete version
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Roxanne Gutierrez commented
Why is it taking Microsoft over 4 years! to even consider implementing such a basic feature? Get it together Microsoft!!! You guys get paid the big bucks. The sad thing is at this scale of business you lose the fundamental idea that customers pay your bills.
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Hagen commented
Lots of people have a prefered name that is different from their official name. Please do this.
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Scott Hajek commented
Some have mentioned the ability to delete part of the full name after it expands, which is a step in the right direction. However, it doesn't solve for when people go by a shortened form or other nickname. Also, having to do the deleting every time is annoying and would be nice to be able to set using first name as default (as others have suggested).
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Gaby commented
When I give an online lecture to students, I don't want to see their last name and initials, I want to see their first name so I can call them by their first name when asking a question. Lecturers should be able to choose how they want their name to be displayed.
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Ed Burnette commented
When I use the @ mention in my company it shows first and last name. I can backspace and get rid of the last name but I want a setting to *always* use the first name unless I specifically do something (tab or whatever) to get the full name. It seems like a minor thing, but the minor things add up over the course of a day.
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John Bowers commented
This is a huge problem for me as well. I'm using Teams to manage classes this year and it is completely impersonal to refer to a student as "Lastname, Firstname - UserID". Had I noticed this before I went to the trouble of adding all of my students, encouraging their interaction, and setting up a bunch of features in Teams I would not have chosen Teams at all and frankly, will not use it next semester if this isn't fixed by then.
A great educational experience starts with a great classroom environment. If Microsoft wants to market Teams as "for education" stuff like this needs to be solved and quickly. Again, I will switch to Slack for next semester if this is still an issue, because its a deal breaker for me.
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KD Wood commented
Would like to be able to create an alias for @mentions instead of hey @John D. I see “Lastname, First name org Reference Indicator“.
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Nicole commented
Agree- we need this feature. Our org isn't going to change active directory display, and many people go by a nickname other than their first name - we should be able to accomodate an alias. Even FB messenger has this feature now.
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Marco commented
It's super strange to get an @ notification where it's @myName [Organization] if the entire Team chat is all within the same organization, and why would it be highlighted orange if it wasn't me?
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Alison commented
Much more friendly