For increased security, avoid installing a WordPress site with the user name “admin”.
This is the default installation user name for WordPress and one of the leading causes of brute force attacks on the WordPress platform.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to change your WordPress admin username from ‘admin’ to a more secure username.
How To Change Your WordPress Admin Username
Normally, with a new WordPress installation, the first user is also the admin of the website or blog.
The default WordPress username admin is not recommended, as it can out your blog at risk of being hacked …
Let’s change the admin username in WordPress to a more secure user name.
There are several ways to access your “Profile” section and view your user name details inside WordPress:
Select the Users > All Users screen in your main menu …
Click on your username, or the Edit link when hovering over the user name with your mouse …
Or, select Edit My Profile from the “Howdy, User” menu at the top-right hand corner of your screen …
You can also go to your “Profile” area by selecting Users > Your Profile from your Dashboard side menu.
What you will discover in the Profile page, however, is that you cannot change your username from your Dashboard section …
So, how do you edit your WordPress admin username?
Change Admin Username By Creating A New Admin User
If your WordPress user name is “admin,” here’s the easiest way to change this without going into your server and altering your WordPress database:
Click Add New to add a new user …
Next, create a better user name, and assign your new user account the role of “Administrator”. 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 user name details in the “Howdy, User” panel …
Click on Users > All Users in your main menu …
Delete your old user account …
Choose the option to attribute all content owned by the old admin account and reassigned it to the new admin, 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 user name 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 Your User Name Inside The WordPress Database
In our example, the server is using cPanel …
cPanel
Log into your server administration account …
cPanel admin 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 select the correct one …
phpMyAdmin databases
Don’t be concerned about the technical-looking nature of the information on your screen.
Click on wp_users …
The user name is located in the “user login” column. To edit the user name simply double-click on the text you want to change …
Type in the new username 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 will probably find that your session has expired. Log in again with your new Admin login credentials …
You should see that the username has been updated. However, it will probably still display the old “nickname” …
To change the “nickname”, access your Users area and click the Edit link below your username …
You can also reach your Profile section if you click on the Edit My Profile link in the “Howdy, User” section …
Choose 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now