Wordpress: How to Change the Default Admin Username

When installing WordPress, the default administrator username is “admin”, unless otherwise specified. As you probably know, the admin user has full permissions giving it access to control the whole WordPress site.

If the admin username is not changed from the default, a hacker can easily break into your website using something called a “brute force attack” to obtain the password from the admin user and attack your site via the WordPress admin.

Firstly, you need to ensure that you choose a username that contains an uncommon combination of words and maybe numbers and symbols too. For example: “john101975”. Now to change the default admin user, just follow these steps…

Login to WordPress using the admin account.
Select the “users” area from your dashboard panel, and click on “Add New User”.
Fill in the details for the new username and choose “administrator” in the “Role” drop down menu. Also ensure that your password is strong!
When finished, click “Add New User”.
Logout, then login again using your new username.
Navigate to the “Users” area.
Tick the username called “admin” and then select “delete” from the dropdown menu, then click apply.
Next, you will be asked about the articles posted under the the previous “admin” username. Select the option “attribute all posts and links to” and select your new administrator password. When ready click “Confirm Deletion”.
You must ensure that your display name of your new admin user account is different to the username

And that’s it. The default WordPress admin username has been successfully deleted and the security level of your administrator account has been increased.