How To Change Your Username

How to change your username (or real name):

Changing your name is easy! Visit your Twitter Account settings to change either your real name and/or username.

1. Log in to Twitter.com.
2. Click on the person icon and select Settings from the drop down menu.
3. Change the username listed in your Username field on the Account settings page.
4. To change your real name, go to the Profile tab in your settings, and type in a new name in the Name field.
5. Save your changes.

NOTE: Changing your username will not affect your existing followers, Direct Messages, or @replies. Your followers will simply see a new username next to your profile photo when you update. We suggest you send out an update to your followers before you change your username, because any @replies or Direct Messages sent to your old username will not be associated with your account once you've switched to your new username.

What's the difference between your real name and your username?

• Your username appears in your profile URL and is unique to you. Usernames are used for log in, @replies, direct messaging, and more. Your username appears alongside your profile image in your followers' timelines each time you update, and we also include it in all outgoing text messages.
• Your real name is your full name, displayed in your profile page and used to identify you to friends. This can be helpful if your username is something mysterious, such as @neongolden, or @meangrape. Some people choose to put something other than a name in that field, such as their company or business name.

How long can real names and usernames be?

• Your username can contain up to 15 characters. Why no more? Because we append your username to the 140 characters on outgoing SMS/text updates. If your name is longer than 15 characters, your message would be too long to send in a single text message.
  
• Your real name can be 20 characters long. Although your username may contain only 15 characters, many real names exceed 15 characters. Since we rarely send real name info via text message (except when using the WHO IS command) we added extra characters for folks (like Konstantin Gredeskoul) with longer names. Real names are also used in follow notification and request emails to help accurately identify folks with usernames like @cupcake25.
  
• Earlybirds: Early users of Twitter may have a username or real name longer than user names we currently allow. This is okay until you need to save changes to your account settings. No changes will save unless your user/real name is the appropriate length; this means you have to change your real name/username to meet our most updated name regulations.

Having trouble?

If you're having trouble with usernames, please see our username troubleshooting article for more information.