Did you participate in the Facebook username land rush only to find out that your username was taken? So did many other people, but a few have figured out how to get their name back. Over the past week I’ve received a number of inquiries from companies that had their Facebook username taken on the site and are trying to figure out how to get it back. Two of the people that contacted were able to get their username within 24 hours from filling out a little known form.

By filling out the Facebook client username form, there’s a good chance that you’ll get the username back. Both Darren Rowse of Problogger and the team at CDBaby were able to get their usernames back relatively quickly after filling in the form. Getting your username taken can be a big deal especially if someone else is looking to build a reputation using a brand name that you’ve spent a long time building.

Many users that I’ve spoken to have said that they had no issue with getting their username but a few people couldn’t get theirs. Another interesting occurrence is usernames that appear to be reserved and while they aren’t currently pointing to any page, any attempt to register them results in an error message saying that the username is not available. I can only assume that Facebook pre-reserved a large number of usernames.

If you weren’t able to get a username or are still waiting to register one for your page that has under 1,000 fans and has already been taken, head over to the Facebook client username form. Remember that you should only fill out the form if you have rights to the name and currently can’t reserve it because someone else took it or it appears to be reserved by Facebook.

NOTE
This is not for personal usernames! This is only for business names that you had taken. Keep that in mind to avoid needlessly emailing Facebook when they won’t be able to help you.