What about adding a field "other names" to the user profile?
For both email searches and a potential "other name" field search, I'd like to see an option to be contacted when someone finds you based on that field, so you can approve whether that person will be given your username. For example, let's say I've checked off a box titled "screen people who can find me via email address". A coworker puts in my email address (which is based upon my legal name). The coworker then sees one of two possibilities (the user can choose which): "one of your email contacts is on DW; we will contact hir with your DW username" or "your email contact XXX is not on DW." Then I get a message from DW saying "your email address was found by XXX" (where XXX would either be my coworkers DW username or my coworker's email address, as ze chooses in hir preferences) and there are appropriate links so you can add that person if you want, or never reveal your DW username if that's what you prefer.
no subject
For both email searches and a potential "other name" field search, I'd like to see an option to be contacted when someone finds you based on that field, so you can approve whether that person will be given your username. For example, let's say I've checked off a box titled "screen people who can find me via email address". A coworker puts in my email address (which is based upon my legal name). The coworker then sees one of two possibilities (the user can choose which): "one of your email contacts is on DW; we will contact hir with your DW username" or "your email contact XXX is not on DW." Then I get a message from DW saying "your email address was found by XXX" (where XXX would either be my coworkers DW username or my coworker's email address, as ze chooses in hir preferences) and there are appropriate links so you can add that person if you want, or never reveal your DW username if that's what you prefer.