placeholder for later username in /etc/skel

Is there any possibility to use a placeholder in the config files located in /etc/skel that is replaced by the username later?

e.g. I place ":USER:" in one config file and create a new user with the username "test". Then ":USER:" should be replaced by "test".

Thanks for your replies.

Ubuntu uses adduser from Debian, and that program just does a straight up file copy from /etc/skel, so you're out of luck there. However, it does support hook scripts (look in adduser(8) for adduser.local), and you could write a little hook script that did a sed -i over some or all of the files in the newly-created home directory to do your text substitution magic.