Forms carrying values.

Hi list, hope someone can help me here. I have content management system I have designed. I am still learning php so help here would be appreciated. The user logs into the system, and we carry there user name over the pages using a link to each page with the value of their name carried over as follows: ../index.php?name=<?echo("$name")?> This works fine for the whole site, except when a user makes changes to a entry. Once they submit adding a new entry or modifying an existing one, the value of : ../index.php?name=My Name ends up being ./index.php?name=My It deletes the end of the name of the url, so that when the user clicks the link it does not really know who they are. I have used a hidden field to carry the value of the name over the pages, but it does not work on forms. I hope this makes some sort of sense. If anyone knows of a workaround. Thanks Barry