Ok, so being James99910 for a while now hasn’t done much for your gaming cred while playing Xbox Live. Now is the time to get that great name you’ve always wanted, after Microsoft revealed just now that plenty of names, or gamertags, will be freed-up.

“Nearly 1 million previously used XBL gamertags are going to be re-released starting this Wed,” tweeted Major Nelson’s Larry Hryb.

A gamertag is pretty much like any pseudonym that can be used as a username, or ID, but as many people experience when joining the game late, even quite original sounding names on an attempted sign-up can lead to a road block: Sorry, that name is taken.

Microsoft has said that as names are given-up from time to time, or changed for other names, or not migrated, it’s time Xbox fans had the chance to claim a name they’ve always wanted. This is not open to all users though — the offer is only available to Xbox Gold members with at least one year of pay-for-play subscription since 2002.

To get involved go over to Xbox One. The giveaway starts on Wednesday, May 18^th, 2:00 pm ET/11  am PT. The tags will be released intermittently over a 24 hour period so that people on all sides of the world have a chance of winning. If you’ve never changed your gamertag before, the change is free, although those who have already done the switch will have to pay a fee of $10.

Xbox won’t say right now which names will become available, and let’s be honest, a million is a fairly big number. Xbox did say, however, what kind of categories some of the names fall into:

Proper Names

Pop culture references (Entertainment, sports, gaming)

Types of Food

Geography and Travel

Science and Technology

Math and Numbers

Animals

Some of the greatest inventions of all time

You may not have heard of the expression nominative determinism (outcome of life determined by a name), but let’s face it; Kevin4567 sounds much less intimidating than ThePanther, CyanideMan or even BillGates.

Photo credit: Major Nelson