For online security purposes, it’s safer to not create a WordPress site using the username “admin”.
This is the default installation username for WordPress and one of the leading causes of brute force attacks and security threats on a WordPress website or blog.
In this step-by-step tutorial for non-technical users, we’ll show you how to change the WordPress admin user name from ‘admin’ to a more secure username.
Changing Your WP Admin Username To Another User Name
Normally, on all new WordPress installations, the first user is usually the admin of the website or blog.
Having the default WordPress username admin is not recommended, as it can out your website or blog at risk of being attacked by hackers or botnets …
Let’s change the admin user name in WordPress to a more secure user name.
There are several ways to view your username details inside your admin area:
Click on the Users > All Users screen in your main menu …
Click on the user name, 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 screen …
You can also go to your “Profile” page by selecting Users > Your Profile from your Dashboard menu.
You will discover when you get into the Profile page that you can’t change usernames inside your Dashboard …
So, how can you edit your admin username?
Change Admin Username By Creating A New Admin User
If your user name is “admin,” here’s the easiest way to change this without accessing your server and doing technical changes to your WordPress database:
First, let’s create a new user …
Next, create a more secure username, and assign this new user account the role of “Administrator”. Remember to save your changes in order to update your settings …
A new admin user should now be displaying …
Log out of your WordPress admin area …
Log in with the new admin details for the user you have just created …
You should see your new username details displayed in the “Howdy, User” screen …
Click on Users > All Users in your main menu …
You can now delete the 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 admin account …
You are now left with only the new Admin account, effectively changing your WordPress admin username …
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 designed 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:
Changing A Username Inside The WordPress Database
In this example, we’ll be working with cPanel …
cPanel
Log into your server control panel …
cPanel admin area
Scroll down to the “Databases” section and open up phpMyAdmin …
phpMyAdmin
Click on your WP database.
Note: If you have multiple databases set up on your domain, make sure that you select the right one …
phpMyAdmin databases
Don’t worry about the complicated screen.
Click on wp_users in the left-hand column …
The user name is located in the “user login” column. To edit the user name 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 username …
Log out of your server if you’re done and go back to your WordPress site. You may find that your session has expired. If so, log in again with your new administration login details …
You will see that the username is now updated. However, it will probably still be displaying the previous “nickname” …
To edit the “nickname”, go to your Users area and click on the Edit link below the username …
You can also access the Profile section by clicking on the Edit My Profile link in the “Howdy, User” box …
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 user name on your website.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)