About Third Name
Third Name is a place to make friends by answering the questions someone actually asked. You write between three and seven questions. Anyone who wants to reach you answers them. You read the answers and decide. There’s no other way in.
The name comes from T. S. Eliot’s The Naming of Cats, in which every cat has a third name that no research can discover.
Privacy
Last updated 7 September 2026. Plain language, not legal boilerplate.
What other people can see
Your published profile is public: your display name, age, the city and state derived from your ZIP code, your blurb, your photo, and your questions. Anyone with the link can see it, including people who aren’t signed in. Your exact ZIP code is never shown — only the city and state.
What is never shared
Your email address. It is never shown to another member and never included in any notification we send them. Our database has no column for it: addresses live only with our authentication provider and are read at the moment an email is sent. Conversations happen here, not over email.
What we collect
The email address you sign up with; your display name, age, ZIP code, blurb, and photo; the questions you write; the answers you send other people; and the messages you exchange. We keep a record of who blocked or reported whom, so that blocking works and reports can be reviewed.
What we don't do
No advertising, no trackers that follow you around the web, no selling or sharing your information with third parties, and no use of your writing to train anything. We do track anonymized product usage — which features get used, not what you wrote — to help us improve the app; it’s never tied to your name, email, or the content of your questions, answers, or messages.
Who processes your data
The site runs on Vercel. Profile information, questions, answers, and messages are stored in a Neon Postgres database in the United States. Sign-in and email addresses are handled by Clerk. Photos are stored in Vercel Blob. Notification emails are sent through Resend. Anonymized usage events (for example, that a message was sent, not its contents) are sent to Mixpanel for product analytics. Each of these is a processor acting on our behalf.
Email we send
Only what the app requires: sign-in codes, a note when someone answers your questions, a note when a conversation opens, an invitation if someone offers you a second chance, and an occasional digest if you have unread messages. Never marketing. Replies to our sending address aren’t monitored.
Deleting your account
Email david.martin@adhoctechnology.net and we’ll remove your profile, questions, answers, and messages. This is a small site and that is currently a manual process, so please allow a few days.
Alpha software
Third Name is new and in testing. Things may break, and features may change. Please don’t put anything here you would be distressed to lose.