Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. Purchasing a product through one of these links generates a commission for us at no additional expense to you.
You love your blog.
The design is slick, your writing is stellar, but there’s one thing driving you nuts…
“Published by admin.”
You didn’t slave over your content for hours to give credit to some anonymous “admin” character, so how can you replace that with your name?
The solution is simple and doesn’t require installing any new themes or plugins.
How to change your public name
If you’re more of a visual learner, you can follow the steps in this video:
Subscribe to Compete Themes on Youtube
To change your public name, start by logging into your WordPress dashboard.
Once inside, hover your cursor over the Users menu item, and click on the Your Profile link.
Once the page loads, scroll down until you reach the Name section. Here you’ll find the following options for creating your name:
- Username
- First Name
- Last Name
- Nickname
The Username cannot be changed, but it doesn’t have to show up publicly on the site. It will only be used for logging in.
You can fill out the First Name and Last Name inputs, but these are both optional.
More interesting is the Nickname field, which lets you give yourself any name you want. If you’d prefer to use a pen name instead of your real name, enter it here.
Once you have the name fields filled out, click on the Display name publicly as dropdown and you will see a variety of names to choose from. You can select from combinations of your first and last name or the nickname you set.
After you’ve selected your desired author name, save your settings, and it will display publicly across your website.
Your new name is live
With your new “display name” selected, you’ll see it appearing everywhere on your site.
WordPress gives theme developers, like me, a handy function to output the author name. So, whether your name shows up in the post byline, in a widget, or an author box after the post, it will now use the display name you’ve chosen.
If you want more quick and simple ways to customize your website, take a look at this post next:
31 Easy Ways to Customize Your WordPress Website
You’ll find a lot more bite-sized tweaks that will improve your site.
Thanks for reading this article about changing your author name in WordPress, and please consider using the buttons below to share it with someone else.