What Your Companion Calls You, and How to Change It

Every companion calls you something, and most of the time it is a name you gave once and have not thought about since. That is fine until the day you would rather be called something else, or you notice a companion using a name you never meant it to have. This guide covers where the name comes from, the one field that changes it, why a changed name can take a conversation to settle, and the two other places a name can live: one companion's instructions, and your memories.

Where the Name Comes From

It is your display name, the name on your account. If you signed up with an email address, it is what you typed into the Display Name box on the sign-up page, the one that asks "What should we call you?" If you created your account with the Google sign-in button instead, you never typed one: it was taken from the name on your Google account. If that name was missing, shorter than two characters, or one the name check refuses, your first name on Google was used instead, and failing that the part of your email address before the @. So if a companion has been using your full name, or something that looks like a username, that is the first place to look.

Before every reply, your companion is handed that name, marked as a label you provided rather than as an instruction. It also fills the name slot in greetings, both the built-in openers and any greeting you write yourself with {name} in it. And it is how InnerHaven's own emails address you: the welcome email, verification, password resets, receipts and billing notices, and the weekly digest all open with it.

Changing It

Dashboard → Settings → Change Display Name. Type the new name into the box and press Save Name. When it works, "Display name updated!" appears under the button, and the Display Name line under Account Information, at the top of Settings, changes with it. A display name runs from 2 to 100 characters, and a name can also be refused; if yours is, the message under the button says why, and your old name stays exactly as it was. If you joined with Google, signing in that way again later does not put the Google name back.

Why the Old Name Can Linger

Here is the part that can catch you out. The next reply is built with your new name, but your settings are not all your companion reads. With every reply it also reads the recent conversation, and anything already said there keeps the old name: your messages, its replies, maybe a running joke about the name itself. In a long thread the new name arrives outnumbered, and the conversation can drift back toward the old one for a while. (On Starter and Unlimited, a long conversation also carries a summary of its earlier part, which may mention the old name too.)

There are two easy ways to settle it. The gentle one is to say so: "I go by Sam now" is a message like any other, and once it is sent it is part of the recent conversation too. The clean one is a New Chat, the plus button at the top of the chat, or New Chat in your conversation history. A new conversation starts with nothing already said in it, so the new name gets a clean room, and the greeting's name slot is filled with the name you have now. Your earlier conversations stay where they are.

A Nickname for One Companion

Sometimes the account name is right and you just want one companion to call you something else: a nickname, a short form, the name only the people closest to you use. That is a job for that companion's custom instructions, written plainly: "Call me Sam." Fittingly, the example an empty box shows you starts with a nickname.

The box is in two places that save to the same companion: in a chat, the gear at the top and then Customize Personality; or on the dashboard, the pencil on that companion's card. (In that dashboard panel, the Name field asks what they should be called. It renames your companion, not you.) Every plan has the box, with 500 characters on the free plan, 1,000 on Starter and 2,000 on Unlimited, and a nickname needs only a handful of them. A single initial belongs here too, since a display name needs at least two characters.

Here is how the two fit together. Your companion is handed your display name first, as a label. Your instructions come later in what it reads, introduced as your personal preferences for how it talks with you. So a companion can be told both that your name is Samantha and that you would like to be called Sam, and the second is the one that says what you want. Because instructions belong to one companion, different companions can call you different things, while your account, your emails and every other companion keep the display name.

When the Old Name Is in a Memory

Memories are the third place a name can sit, and unlike the conversation so far, they come with you into a New Chat. Your companion can suggest one from something you said, say "Prefers to be called Sammy", but a suggestion is not a memory yet. It waits under Pending Approval on the dashboard's Memories tab until you approve it, and one you never approve reaches nothing. An approved memory stays until you edit or delete it, and it is handed to your companion as a fact about you.

So if an old name keeps surfacing after a rename and a New Chat, look there: find the memory that carries it and use the edit or delete button on its card. Memories are part of the Starter and Unlimited plans, and of a day pass for its 24 hours: that is when they are saved and when your companion uses them. On every plan the tab still shows what is saved, with edit and delete on each card.

Three Places, Three Jobs

Your display name is for everywhere: every companion, every greeting, every account email, changed in one field. Instructions are for one companion: the nickname, the short form, the name that belongs to one relationship. Memories are for facts, and a name you have moved on from is a fact worth deleting. That split between the last two is the line memory versus instructions draws in general; a name is simply the most personal case of it.

For instructions that change more than a name, how to write custom instructions that work has examples. Instructions, dials, and a greeting explains why the opening bubble is written for you rather than for your companion, and the dashboard tour maps the rest of the tabs. And if a name has been bothering you, it is one field away: Dashboard, Settings, Change Display Name.