Name change taken question?

[ctenophora]

I just got SL Premium to change my name, and looked up the name in game and nothing came up- maybe people can de list themselves so that's not a problem.
When it said the name change was taken, i went to the account on the website, it took me to a page like it would have the name, but the name was different. (IE: james.wainwright > jack.wainwright)

is this an error? or do people just keep every name they've ever had, and maybe this person changed their first name?
is it possible to get a refund on premium if i only got it for this and i can't do it now?

thanks in advance for any answers, and have a good day!

[Rolig Loon]

Every name in SL must be unique. If it was ever used by anybody -- all the way back to the start of SL -- it can never be used again.  I don't know about your specific choice, but I suspect that one of your searches was only telling you about people who have active accounts today.  You could always submit a support case to ask.

8 minutes ago, ctenophora said:

is it possible to get a refund on premium if i only got it for this and i can't do it now?

Again. I can't speak for Linden Lab, but the LL TOS says that they are not obligated to  give refunds. That doesn't mean that they won't, so you can ask. Just don't be surprised if they say NO.  --- > 4.4 Linden Lab has no obligation to accept returns or provide refunds of any amounts paid for products or services purchased from Linden Lab.

 

[Quistess Alpha]

1 hour ago, ctenophora said:

do people just keep every name they've ever had,

People do in fact keep every name they've ever had, but you have to pay the name-change fee if you want to switch to a name you've used before. Nobody else can use your old name though, it gets reserved for you.

[Lucia Nightfire]

11 hours ago, ctenophora said:

I just got SL Premium to change my name, and looked up the name in game and nothing came up- maybe people can de list themselves so that's not a problem.
When it said the name change was taken, i went to the account on the website, it took me to a page like it would have the name, but the name was different. (IE: james.wainwright > jack.wainwright)

is this an error? or do people just keep every name they've ever had, and maybe this person changed their first name?
is it possible to get a refund on premium if i only got it for this and i can't do it now?

thanks in advance for any answers, and have a good day!

You can use the script function llRequestUserKey() with a name to see if it has ever been claimed before.