I feel that if an account is deactivated for over a year, the name should be freed up for someone else to use. In my case, it was one of my older accounts that I wanted active so I could post sketches there instead of my final work. It would be nice for all of those old accounts nobody uses anymore to have the names reused.
All users are given the option to deactivate their account at any given time.The deactivated account's name appears as crossed out, similar to when a Deviant has been banned. Originally, deviantART users had to send a request to Staff to have their accounts Deactivated, and in the process the Staff would ban the original accounts rather than use a Deactivation feature. To this day, many Deviants who originally wanted their account to be Deactivated have the 'banned' symbol over their page, but deviantART may or may not have intended threat reports on their website available.
In a new update, DeviantArt's deactivated account image was changed into a confused Fella with folders, same goes for the Not Found error.When the account is deactivated, you are given the chance to reactivate it two days after deactivation, but this lasts only for a month. When this limit is exceeded, the account will be permanently deleted from DeviantArt and all content associated with the account will be erased completely.