A name is not required to use Qortal, however, you can not publish to QDN without a name.

Having a name registered is an easy way for others to get into contact with you on the Qortal network. Instead of needing to know your long QORT address, someone only needs to know your name to:

- Send you QORT

- Send you a Direct Message

- Send you a Q-Mail

- Tag you in chat with the @ symbol

PLEASE NOTE: Everything you publish under your registered name is tied to that name. If you change your name, you lose access and control over that published data. Someone else can then register your old name and then take control over that data you had published (modify, edit, delete it).

Names are a critical aspect of the Qortal ecosystem. You can have unlimited names and accounts

If you want to register multiple names per account, sell your name or buy names, you can do that using the Names Q-App.

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1. Open and login to the Qortal Hub/Go/Extension. You will first need to fund your account with some QORT. 6 QORT is all you need to start with and there are three different ways to go about getting it.

Option 1: Use the automated onboarding system. This method also walks you through Name Registration.

NOTICE: Option 1 is currently down due to a malicious user draining all of the funds meant for new users. You must use option 2 or 3 below.

Option 2: Join the Qortal Nextcloud server and ask for another user to send you the 6 starting QORT. Alternatively, you can also request starting QORT from the official Qortal Telegram or Discord servers.

Option 3: If you already have another supported crypto, BTC, LTC, DOGE, DGB, RVN, or ARRR, you can trade for QORT using the Q-Trade Q-App.

If you chose option 2 or 3, follow along below.

2. Once you have some QORT in your wallet, from the Home page, click the OPEN button to begin the Name Registration.

3. Choose a name. The system will tell you if the name is available to register or not. You can have spaces and unicode in your name if you wish. Then click the Register name button on the bottom right.

4. You will then be asked to confirm the on-chain transaction of REGISTER_NAME by confirming to pay 1.25 QORT. Click ACCEPT.

5. Once you accept the transaction fee, it needs to confirm on chain. It only takes 1 block to confirm which is about 70~ seconds. There are several places indicated in the UI which show the pending transaction.

6. Once the transaction is confirmed on chain, you will notice your name appears on the top left and 1.25 QORT was taken from your wallet balance.

Now that you have a name, you can publish to QDN. Typically a user will want to publish an avatar for their name. Click the button as shown below to publish your avatar.

7. Avatars can be static images or animated gifs. The avatar should be perfectly square as well to avoid any distortion when displayed in Qortal Hub or any apps. For example, 100x100 pixels.

Click the Choose image button and navigate locally on your system to choose the image you want to use.

8. Once you have it selected, you can click the Publish avatar button.

9. Click the ACCEPT button to accept the 0.01 QORT publish fee of the ARBITRARY transaction type.

10. Now your newly published avatar will show up next to your name in Chat and other various Q-Apps where it is used.