For online security reasons, it’s safer to not install sites using the user name “admin”.
This is the default installation user name for WordPress and one of the leading causes of brute force attacks on WordPress.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to change the admin user name in WordPress from ‘admin’ to a more secure user name.
How To Change Your Admin User Name In WordPress
Generally, with all new WordPress sites, the first registered user is the website administrator.
Having the default WordPress user name admin is not recommended, as it puts your WordPress site at risk of being hacked …
Let’s change your WordPress admin username from ‘admin’ to a more secure user name.
There are several ways to access your “Profile” section and view your username details inside your administration area:
Click on the Users > All Users screen in your main menu …
Click on the user name, or click on the Edit link when hovering over the username with your mouse …
Or, select Edit My Profile from the “Howdy, User” menu near the top-right hand corner of your Dashboard …
You can also access your “Profile” page by selecting Users > Your Profile from your Dashboard menu.
What you will discover when you get into the Profile page, however, is that your username can’t be changed inside the admin section …
So, how can you edit a user name?
Change Admin Username By Creating A New Admin User
If your admin login is “admin,” here’s the easiest way to change this without accessing your server and touching files or your WordPress database:
First, create a new user …
Next, create a better user name, and assign your new user the role of “Administrator”. Remember to save your changes in order to update your settings …
A new admin user should now display in the Users section …
Log out of your WordPress admin area …
Log in with your new admin details …
You should see your new username details displayed in the “Howdy, User” panel …
Click on Users > All Users in your main menu …
Delete your old user account …
Select the option to attribute all content owned by the old admin account and reassigned it to your new admin, then confirm the deletion of the old admin 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 a WordPress username inside the WordPress database.
All you need is admin access to your server’s control panel.
To learn how to search and replace content in your WordPress database without touching code or editing WordPress database tables, see the tutorial below:
Changing Your User Name Inside The WordPress Database
In our example, the server uses the cPanel management software …
cPanel management application
Log into your server control panel …
cPanel administration area
Navigate to the “Databases” section and click on phpMyAdmin …
phpMyAdmin
Click on your WP database.
Note: If you have multiple databases set up on your domain, make sure you choose the right one …
phpMyAdmin databases
Don’t be concerned about the complicated-looking screen.
Click on wp_users …
The username is located in the “user login” column. To edit the field simply double-click on this text you want to change …
Type in the new username and click outside the edit box to update the field with a new user name …
Log out of your server if you’re done and go back to your WordPress site. You will probably find that your session has expired. If so, log in again with your new Admin details …
You will see that your user name has been updated. However, your admin details will probably still be displaying the previous “nickname” …
To edit your “nickname”, go to your Users screen and click on the Edit link below the username …
You can also reach your Profile section if you click on the Edit My Profile link in the “Howdy, User” screen …
Select a new name to display publicly from the drop down 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 username and nickname …
Congratulations! Now you know how to change your WordPress admin username on your website.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum