Alright, I haven't said my piece here and I guess it's time to do that.
For all of those of you who're saying "Do what [other sites] do", you're blind as to WHY they're doing that. That's basically a band aid on a poor username implementation system.
Luckily, the only thing we've ever had to alter with respect to usernames in the past 7 years of user accounts on Newgrounds is the restriction of underscores (_) from usernames, and that's largely down to Ross' foresight, when he created the user accounts system years ago.
As for going ahead with the "user name/display name" situation. What a crock... Most of the people who're going for this argument have actually complained in the past about not being able to get their desired username. So, if you have a "username" that's unique and then a "display name" that's also unique (and is assigned to every new user), then you also have to check (when signing up a new user), whether: a) the username is taken and THEN b) whether the display name is taken.
Imagine how many people (like you who have requested unique usernames (that were previously taken) for a long time) would feel, given those peoples' situation.
With regards to those who have given input about meta-redirects, header redirects, etc - thanks, but, with respect, those sort of situations should only ever arise after actual data (as in posts to the bbs) has been sent to the script, rather than relatively insignificant handle comparisons.
Let's not forget what a user page is supposed to be. It's supposed to be a user's page.
Changing usernames just for the sake of holidays doesn't cut it with me, change your image in your profile or in your bbs signature instead. Sorry.