Discord fonts and nicknames

Discord is unusual among the platforms people generate fonts for, because it already has formatting. Messages are parsed as a subset of Markdown, so asterisks give you italic, double asterisks bold, double underscores underline, and double tildes strikethrough. In a message, that is strictly better than pasting styled characters: it renders identically for everyone, it is searchable, it is announced correctly by screen readers, and it does not depend on font coverage. If you are styling a message, use markdown.

Where markdown does not reach is exactly where this page is useful. Nicknames are not parsed for markdown, so asterisks in a nickname just show up as asterisks. The same goes for your global display name, your custom status, your About Me on your profile, and channel and category names if you have permission to edit them. Those are all plain text fields with no formatting, so substituted Unicode characters are the only way to change how they look. Your actual username, the lowercase handle, is restricted to a limited character set and will not take styled text.

Channel names have their own rule that catches people out. Discord lowercases text channel names and replaces spaces with hyphens, and it applies that transformation to the characters it recognises. Styled characters are not lowercase letters as far as that logic is concerned, so they survive unchanged, which is why styled channel names are common on decorated servers. Small caps are the popular choice here because they look deliberate, stay legible in the narrow channel sidebar, and are widely supported.

Code formatting is worth knowing as an alternative to all of this. Wrapping text in backticks renders it in Discord's monospace font, and a triple-backtick block does the same over multiple lines. That gets you a genuine typewriter look with no Unicode substitution at all, meaning it stays fully searchable and readable. If typewriter style is what you were after, backticks are the better tool, and the Unicode monospace alphabet is for the fields where backticks are not parsed.

Two cautions specific to Discord. First, zalgo. Because Discord renders messages in a continuous scrolling list, stacked combining marks overflow into the messages above and below and disrupt the channel for everyone reading it, not just you. A great many servers ban it outright, and plenty run moderation bots that automatically rename members whose nicknames contain non-spacing marks or unusual scripts. Second, the accessibility point: Discord is used heavily with screen readers, and a nickname in mathematical bold or fraktur is often announced as a string of character names or skipped entirely, which makes you genuinely hard to refer to in a voice or text conversation. A styled nickname that nobody can read out is a worse nickname.

Common questions

Why does markdown not work in my nickname?

Discord only parses markdown in message content. Nicknames, display names, statuses, About Me and channel names are plain text fields, so asterisks and underscores appear literally. Substituted Unicode characters are the only way to style those.

Can I change my Discord username to a font?

No. The username handle is restricted to a limited set of lowercase letters, digits and a couple of symbols. Style your global display name or your per-server nickname instead, both of which accept Unicode.

Will a bot kick me for a styled nickname?

Possibly, if the style is aggressive. Many moderation bots automatically rename or flag nicknames containing stacked combining marks, mixed scripts or unreadable characters, because those are used to evade mention and moderation. Bold and small caps almost never trigger it; zalgo frequently does.

How do I get monospace text on Discord?

Use backticks in a message for a real code style, which is searchable and accessible. In fields where backticks are not parsed, such as nicknames, use the typewriter style on this page, which substitutes Unicode monospace characters.

Does styled text break mentions and search?

It breaks search, because the characters are not the letters they resemble. Mentions still work, because they resolve by user ID rather than by name, but people cannot easily type your name to find you, which is a real cost in a busy server.

See also

• Bold text generator
• Zalgo and glitch text generator
• Small caps generator