Unless you are installing WordPress using Fantastico or a similar script, you cannot change the admin username for WordPress. This poses a security risk as a hacker simply needs to guess your admin panel password while using the username ‘admin’ (the default username).
To make your WordPress blog secure from such an attack, you can change the Admin user name from within WordPress. This requires you to create a new admin username and delete the older one.
Here’s the step by step break down on how to do this in WP 2.7:
- Login to your WordPress panel
- Under ‘Users’ on the left, click on ‘Add New’ link.
- Enter your preferred username, password and email.
- Set the Role of this user as ‘Administrator’ and click the Add User button
- You’ve successfully created a new admin user.
- Now, log out from your admin panel and log in again as the NEW user you just created
- Finally, delete the old ‘admin’ user from Users > Authors & Users
You’ve just made your WordPress installation more secure. Stay tuned as there are going to be some very interesting developments on the blog (Hint: there’s a lot of stuff coming for YOU which you’ll love – I promise).