Guild tags non-unique

I was kind of surprised to find that guild tags aren't unique, e.g I can create a guild with the tag BLUE, QQ or LOVE or fang etc, even though they are existing guilds. Has it always been like this?

Yes. There are far too many guilds for every one to have a unique tag.

As far as I know, yes. But think about it, how many possible combinations can be made with only four letters maximum? If guild tags were unique, nearly every combination would have been created within the first month or two.

They are also case sensitive, so there are a fair few combinations, e.g

red, Red, RED, ReD, rEd, rED, ..etc

Thanks for the answer.

Simple calculation: ( Note: I do not count jap, chinese&koreans characters&numbers ).

52*52+52*52*52+52*52*52*52= the total amounts of guild names possible.

*edit* forgot that 1 character guild names don't exsist

Seven million four hundred and fifty four thousand nine hundred and twenty eight (7454928) possible guild tag combinations.

Assumptions made...
1. Only english letters can be used in guild tags (False, Chinese/Korean/Japanese etc letters can also be used)

2. Counting uppercase and lower case as different characters

3. Length can be 2, 3 or 4 letters

4. I have a basic concept of maths (unlikely to be true but I feel this is required)

10k guild wars gold (not real cash) to the first person to list them all

I believe you are correct.

To expound, the number is reached by simplifying (52^2 + 52^3 + 52^4).

This is almost identical to what Yanman.be posted, except that the first term doesn't belong since guild tags cannot contain only one character.

Still, at which point will people hit the point in which they wouldn't be able to think up any unique char? Most likely less them 1/10 of that.