For improved online security, avoid creating WordPress sites with the username “admin”.
This is the default installation user name for WordPress and one of the leading causes of brute force attacks on the WordPress CMS.
In this tutorial for non-technical users, we’ll show you how to change your WordPress admin username to a more secure user name.
How To Change Your WordPress Username From Admin To Another Username
Typically, in all new WordPress sites, the first user is the admin of the website or blog.
The default WordPress user name admin is not recommended, as it can out your WordPress site at risk of being hacked …
Let’s change the admin user name in WordPress to a more secure user name.
There are a number of ways to access your “Profile” section after logging into WP:
Click on the Users > All Users section in the main menu …
Click either on your username, or the Edit link when hovering over the username with your mouse …
Or, select Edit My Profile from the “Howdy, User” drop-down menu near the top-right hand corner of your Dashboard …
You can also access your “Profile” page by selecting Users > Your Profile from your admin menu.
What you will see in the Profile page, however, is that your username cannot be changed inside your Dashboard section …
So, how do you change this admin user name?
Change Admin Username By Creating A New Admin User
If your user name is “admin,” here’s the easiest way to change your user name without going into your server and touching files or your WordPress database:
Click Add New to create a new user …
Next, create a better user name, and assign the new user the role of “Administrator”. Save your changes to update your settings …
A new admin user should now be displaying …
Log out of your WordPress admin area …
Log in with your new admin details …
You should see your new username details in the “Howdy, User” panel …
Click on Users > All Users in the main menu …
You can now delete your old user account …
Select the option to assign all content owned by the old admin account and reassigned it to your new user, then confirm the deletion of the old account …
You are now left with only the new Admin account, effectively changing your WordPress admin user name …
Change Admin Username Using A WordPress Plugin
Another easy way to change the username is to use a plugin like the one shown below.
Username Changer
(Username changer)
Username Changer is a free WordPress plugin that lets you easily change your admin username (and allow other users to change their usernames too!)
Installing The Plugin
To install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add Plugins and type in “username” into the Keyword search field (if you need help see our tutorial on installing WordPress plugins).
There are several plugins you can use to perform a similar function. Locate the Username Changer plugin and click on ‘Install Now’ …
(Install the plugin)
After installing the plugin, click the ‘Activate’ button …
(Activate the plugin)
Configuring The Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, go to Settings > Username Changer …
(Settings – Username Changer menu)
This brings you to the ‘Settings’ screen.
Here, you can allow other user roles to change their usernames too (be careful about doing this!) …
(Username Changer Settings – Allowed Roles)
You can also configure email notifications (if you choose to allow users to change their usernames) …
(Username Changer Settings – Email notifications)
Using The Plugin
To change your username, go to Users > Your Profile …
(Users – Your Profile menu)
Scroll down to the ‘Name’ section and you will see a ‘Change Username’ link next to the grayed out username field. Click on this link to change your username …
(Click on ‘Change Username’ link)
The ‘Username’ field will become editable. Change your username and click the ‘Save Username’ button …
(Save your new username)
Changing your username will log you out of your WordPress admin area. You will need to log back into your WordPress site.
Click on the link to log back in …
(Click on the link to log back in)
Log back into your site with your new username (note: your password should remain the same) …
(Log back in with your new username)
Note: If you don’t click on the link to log back in you will find yourself logged out of your site …
(Changing your username will expire your session)
After logging back into your site, go to your User Profile section and you will see that your username has been changed.
(Username changed)
To learn more about this plugin, go here: Username Changer
Although this tutorial is really intended for non-technical WordPress users, let’s go one step further and show you how to change your WordPress user name inside the WordPress database.
All you need is access to your server.
To learn how to search and replace content in your WordPress database without touching code or editing WordPress database tables, see the tutorial below:
How To Change A User Name Inside The WordPress Database
For our example, the server uses cPanel …
cPanel
Log into your server admin account …
cPanel administration area
Scroll down to the “Databases” section and open up phpMyAdmin …
phpMyAdmin
Open up your WP database.
Note: If you have a number of databases set up on your domain, make sure you select the correct one …
phpMyAdmin databases
Don’t panic when you see the complicated-looking screen.
Click on wp_users in the left-hand column …
The user name is located in the “user login” column. To edit the field just double-click on the text you want to change …
Type in the new user name and click outside the edit box to update the field with the new user name …
Log out of your server if you’re finished and reopen the browser to your WordPress site. You will probably find that your session is expired. If so, log in again with your new Admin login details …
You will see that the username has been updated. However, your site will probably still display the old “nickname” …
To edit your “nickname”, access your Users section and click on the Edit link below the user name …
You can also access the Profile section by clicking on the Edit My Profile link in the “Howdy, User” panel …
Select a new name to display publicly from the dropdown menu …
Note: You can also create a new Nickname in the Nickname field and it will then be available for selection in the Display name publicly as drop down menu …
Click Update Profile to save your new settings …
You admin area is now updated with a new user name and nickname …
Congratulations! Now you know how to change your WordPress admin user name on your website or blog.
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie