A lot of big name people will add small notes about important announcements to their display names (new book out, stuff like that) so preventing name changes entirely would be very unpopular.

This seems like it ought to be easy to work around. Like, verify a base name, and then give them a little space afterwards where they can add something. The displayed name is the combination of the two. They can even make it a different color to emphasize the announced thing.

Changing the visible display name frequently is a significant part of Twitter culture. In a few weeks, tons of people will change their name to a “spooky” version for Halloween, for example. It’s not a feature Twitter will kill just because of a few scammers.

Great we made usernames into tweets. Tweetception.

Brands like to promote products or events in their Twitter bios/titles/avatars, and adding a forced reverify step would add enough friction for them to use Twitter less.

I believe you can change your display name but if you change your @username you have to go through some re-verification process.