For increased website security, avoid installing sites with the username “admin”.
This is the default installation username for WordPress and one of the leading causes of brute force attacks on WordPress websites.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to change your WordPress admin user name from ‘admin’ to a more secure user name.
Changing Your Admin Username In WordPress To A Different User Name
Generally, in a new WordPress installation, the first registered user is the site administrator.
The default WordPress user name admin is not recommended, as it poses a security risk to your WordPress site …
Let’s change your admin user name in WordPress to a more secure username.
There are a number of ways to access your “Profile” section after logging into your WordPress admin area:
Click on the Users > All Users section in the main menu …
Click either 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” dropdown menu at the top-right hand corner of your screen …
You can also go to your “Profile” page by selecting Users > Your Profile from your admin menu.
What you will see when you get into the Profile area, however, is that you can’t change your user name inside the Dashboard …
So, how do you edit a user name?
Change Admin Username By Creating A New Admin User
If your user name is “admin,” here’s the easiest way to change the username without accessing your server and touching WordPress database:
First, create a new user …
Next, create a different user name, and assign your new user 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 username details in the “Howdy, User” panel …
Click on Users > All Users in your main menu …
You can now delete your old user account …
Select the option to assign 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 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 intended for non-technical WordPress users, let’s go one step further and show you how to change a username inside the WordPress database.
All you need is admin 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 User Name Inside The WordPress Database
For our example, the server uses the cPanel management tool …
cPanel
Log into your server control panel …
cPanel admin area
Scroll down to the “Databases” section and open phpMyAdmin …
phpMyAdmin
Open up your WP database.
Note: If you have a number of databases set up on your domain, make sure you choose the correct one …
phpMyAdmin databases
Don’t be concerned about the complicated-looking screen.
Click on wp_users in the “Table” column on the left-hand side …
The username 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 user name and click outside the edit box to update the field with your 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 Admin details …
You will see that your username is now updated. However, your admin details will probably still display the old “nickname” …
To choose a new “nickname”, access your Users screen and click 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 …
Choose 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 username and nickname …
Congratulations! Now you know how to change your WordPress admin user name on your website.
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