I know, and I am not trying to change my username. The display name is an arbitrary string which, if set, is shown in place of the username. Many users have their display name formatted like “<username> [<pronouns>]”, but it doesn’t have to be related to the username at all - I could set my display name to “aaaaaaaaaaa” or “ಠ_ಠ” if I wanted to.

I also wasn’t asking how to set a display name, I know how to do that. My question was how people set their display name to be longer than 20 characters, since although that is the limit of what Lemmy allows, some users have display names exceeding the limit.

Anyway, the question isn’t an issue anymore, since I figured out how the user in question managed to circumvent the limit.

Their username is Trying2KnowMyself, but their display name is “Trying2KnowMyself [they/them/their/theirs/themself]” which is significantly more than 17 characters