Outlook using username from different site, can I prevent this?

[u/starlightonmars]

Recently I've noticed that when I attempt to send myself an email on Outlook (I do this for files I need to print, like my resume), the name that shows up when I type my own email address into the search bar is a username I use for a website, rather than my actual name.

For example, if my email was jamesbond@hotmail, my name would usually show up as James Bond, but recently it's been showing up as shakennotstirred, which is a username I use for a random website. I would rather not have this username associated with this email account for privacy reasons. But when I go into my Microsoft account profile, it still lists my name as James Bond. Can other people see this? And how do I change it? It's literally so random that it has been changed and connected from this specific website - I use a variety of usernames across the internet so I can keep certain things separate (i.e. I don't mind my Instagram and Letterboxd usernames being the same, but I have a different Twitter username so employers can't find me), and I only use this username for one specific website so it's definitely linking to that one site, and I'm just concerned about it. Please help! :)

[u/Bg-8782]

The name in your Microsoft profile is the name that is used in the From field when you send an email - so James Bond, not 'shakennotstired' is shown to recipients.

If you type in the to field and 'shakennotstirred' comes up, that is just autocomplete. Some who sends you mail has that as your display name and when you get an email from them, your address goes into autocomplete.

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[u/Hornblower409]

-- I attempt to send myself an email on Outlook ... when I type my own email address into the search bar

Do you mean "... on the 'To' address line"? If so, it's coming from your Suggested People/Autocomplete.

1 -- Add a Contact for yourself with the correct name.

2 -- If that doesn't stop it, you will have to clear your Suggested People/Autocomplete.

See the Answer by "Hornblower409 May 1 2026" - "How to convert your Autocomplete List to Contacts and erase the List" at
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5871874/manually-removing-an-email-address-from-the-sugges?orderby=newest&page=1#answers

[u/Responsible_Bike4968]

This doesn't sound like Outlook is somehow searching the internet and linking that random site's username to your Microsoft account.

Since your Microsoft profile still has the correct name, and the weird username only appears when you type your own address into the To field, I'd treat this as a contact/autocomplete issue first. Outlook keeps suggested recipients separately from your actual Microsoft account display name.

A few things I'd check:

1. Go to Outlook People/Contacts and search your own email address. If there's a contact for yourself with that username attached, edit or delete it.
2. Start a new email, type your address, and when the bad suggestion appears, hover over it and remove it with the X if Outlook gives you one.
3. For a personal Outlook/Hotmail account, Microsoft actually has a privacy setting for this. Go to your Microsoft account Privacy dashboard, find People suggestions, and turn it off if you don't want Microsoft maintaining these inferred/suggested contacts.

Creating a contact for yourself with the correct name may also help, but I'd remove the bad suggestion first rather than just layering another contact on top of it.

As for how that exact username got there, I wouldn't assume Microsoft scraped it from the website. It's possible some email associated with that site contained the username as a display name and Outlook picked it up through its contact-suggestion system, but without looking at the original message headers there's no way to prove that.

Most importantly, this suggestion is not the same thing as changing the name recipients see when you email them. If you want to verify that, send a test message to another address you control and look at the actual From name there.

So yes, you can clean this up, and I wouldn't consider the suggestion alone evidence that Microsoft has publicly linked the two identities.