(This post belongs to the series Blogging about blogging.)

A common question of many WordPress users is how to change the default “admin” username that WordPress assigns during installation, so that a hacker cannot easily break into the account. The standard “admin panel->users->edit user” does not let you do this, because your username is tied to your MySQL database access, and you need to make changes in the database itself. The steps are nicely explained here.

But some of you, like me, are probably squeamish about fiddling with databases, no matter how easy it seems. So I did some digging around to see if there is an even easier way, like doing it from inside the admin panel itself without worrying about databases. Everyone, including WordPress, seems to say this is not possible. But I found out that someone already posted a smart solution here, and wanted to share this with you.

This is all you need to do:

1. Create a new user (panel->users->add user) with the username you would like, and give it “Administrator” privilege. You should also assign it same email address, website etc, if you are replacing the admin user with it.
2. Log out of the admin panel, and log back in with the new user.
3. Delete the “admin” user (panel->users->delete user). At the last step you will be reminded to switch all posts and links to the new user (you do not want to delete them too!). That’s it!

If you want, you can confirm the new user in the database (phpMyAdmin->Databases->your database->wp_users->Browse).

See related posts:

1. About blogging
2. How to secure your WordPress blog