For online security purposes, never set up a WordPress site using the user name “admin”.
This is the default installation user name for WordPress and one of the first things hackers look for in WordPress.
In this tutorial for non-technical users, we’ll show you how to change the admin user name in WordPress from ‘admin’ to a more secure username.
How To Change Your WordPress Username From Admin To Another User Name
By default, in all new WordPress sites, the first user is usually the admin.
Having the default WordPress user name admin is not recommended, as it can out your site at risk of being attacked by hackers and bots …
Let’s change your WordPress admin username from ‘admin’ to a more secure user name.
There are a number of ways to view your username details inside your backend admin area:
Click on the Users > All Users page in your main menu …
Click on the username, or the Edit link when hovering over the user name with your mouse …
Or, select Edit My Profile from the “Howdy, User” drop down menu near the top-right hand corner of your admin area …
You can also visit your “Profile” section by selecting Users > Your Profile from the admin menu.
You will discover when you get into the Profile page that you can’t change user names inside the administration section …
So, how do you edit a WordPress admin username?
Change Admin Username By Creating A New Admin User
If your WordPress username is “admin,” here’s the easiest way to change this without going into your server and editing WordPress database:
First, create a new user …
Next, create a new user name, and assign your new user the role of “Administrator”. Remember to save your changes in order to update your settings …
You have now created a new user with admin privileges …
Log out of your WordPress admin area …
Log in with your new admin details …
You should see your new user name details in the “Howdy, User” screen …
Click on Users > All Users in your main menu …
Delete your old administrator account …
Select the option to attribute all content owned by the old user account and reassigned it to the 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 mostly designed for non-technical WordPress users, let’s go one step further and show you how to change your WordPress username inside the WordPress database.
All you need is 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:
How To Change A User Name Inside The WordPress Database
For our example, the server uses cPanel …
cPanel
Log into your server control panel …
cPanel admin area
Navigate 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 that you select the correct one …
phpMyAdmin databases
Don’t worry about the complicated-looking information on your screen screen.
Click on wp_users in the left-hand column …
The username is located in the “user login” column. To edit the username just double-click on this 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 go back to your WordPress site. You will probably find that your session is expired. If so, log in again with your new administration credentials …
You should see that your user name has been updated. However, your site will probably still be displaying the old “nickname” …
To edit your “nickname”, access your Users screen and click the Edit link below your 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 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 the WordPress admin username on your website or blog.
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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