Students and @u email owners: Managing your @u.northwestern.edu (or other G Suite) display name, alias and grad year

To create an email alias that reflects your name as you would like it to be displayed in University systems, follow the steps below. 

  • This article applies to @u.northwestern.edu, @nlaw.northwestern.edu, @alum.northwestern.edu, @kelloggalumni.northwestern.edu, and @fsm.northwestern.edu accounts.

To learn more about how to use the different name and pronoun fields, whom to contact for support and more, visit Institutional Diversity & Inclusion's Frequently Asked Questions page.

Setting up nicknames / alternate email aliases

Your official student email address will reflect your name as listed in CAESAR, typically formatted as FirstnameLastnameYear@u.northwestern.edu. You can add up to two nicknames, or email aliases, on your email account using the Account Management Page.
  • A nickname is an additional email address. For example, a nickname for JoeWildcat2008@alum.northwestern.edu could be joew@alum.northwestern.edu.
  • You can send and receive mail sent to your official account name or any of your account nicknames.
Once you have set up a nickname, you can modify your email settings to send email from your nickname. Email sent to your nickname will automatically come to your email account with no need for additional setup.
 
Note that creating a nickname does not change your official email address. You will still need to log in using your official email address.
 

Changing your display name

You can also change your display name, the name that appears to recipients when you send email.  The display name for your G Suite account is updated at http://umail.northwestern.edu/manage, using the Update Name option.

Updating your graduation year

If your anticipated graduation year changes, you can update the year in your email address using the Change Graduation Year option at the Account Management Page. 
 
If you accidentally set up your email address to use a random string of alphanumeric characters (a “FERPA email address”) upon activating your account, you can also use this option to switch to a FirstnameLastnameYear formatted email address.
 
 

 

 

 

 

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