Change alias / nickname / callsign for Steam friends

Some of my friends on Steam change nicknames so often I can hardly remember who's who. Is there any way I can set custom nicknames for friends in Steam?

Best workaround I've got so far is using tags, but that's not what I'd like to do.

Solution 1:

Since some time now, Steam has built in support for adding a nickname to a friend. Note that this doesn't change a nickname, but rather adds one to your friend's name in parentheses. It works like this:

First, right-click on your friend's name:

Second, choose a nickname:

Result is a nickname behind your friend's current alias:

Solution 2:

Actually, yes, this is possible. Valve implemented this functionality as early as 2010. However, they never exposed this functionality in the client itself for some reason.

Luckily, however, someone created an app to do exactly this.

You can find the forum thread in which it was released here, and a direct download link here:

FriendManager_v0.5.rar

Usage is very simple. You launch the application, set a new name, and close it again. Aliases should be bound to your account and therefore work forever, but they might be stored in the client. At any rate, you won't need to keep the application running to keep the aliases.

An example of this plugin in action:

The alias is in front, and the original name is appended in brackets.

Solution 3:

The Steam Community Beta has added a context menu item to set nicknames for your friends in Steam's Friends interface, and the functionality has been made standard for the current Steam version. Click the down arrow next to your friend's name and hit "add nickname".