Your Username Can Be Changed

Changing a username in WordPress cannot be done within the WordPress interfaces, but it is still easy to do … providing you have access to the WordPress database.

A snippet of the Profile screen

NB: This tip is offered under the premise you are using a self-hosted installation of WordPress and your web host provider has installed the cPanel application to allow you to manage your web site.

Let’s start …

1. Access the cPanel for your web site; and, locate the phpMyAdmin applet, it is generally found in the Databases section.
2. Start phpMyAdmin.
3. Locate and access your WordPress database.
4. Find the wp_users table

wp_users table in your WordPress database

Next, click on the left most icon to browse the users in the wp_users table.

The user list

Then, click on the “pencil” icon beside the user you wish to edit. This will display the screen we will be using to change the username.

The edit user screen

Now, edit the user_login (and the user_nicename) to your new login username. Click on the “GO” button in the bottom right corner (not shown in the image) of the edit screen. Voila!

You can now change the username in a WordPress self-hosted installation. Well Done!

PS: Applying this technique using other methods to access the database is possible, this one only deals with using the cPanel / phpMyAdmin combination.

PPS: Remember to make back-ups! Always!