How To Change Your Username

How to change your username (or real name):

Changing your name(s) is easy! Visit your Twitter account settings to change either your real name and/or username.

1. Log in to Twitter
2. From the upper right hand drop-down menu, click Settings
3. Change the name listed in your username field on the first page you see there.
4. To change your real name, go to the Profile tab of these settings, and type in a new name.
5. Save your changes.

NOTE: Changing your username will not affect your existing followers, direct messages, or @replies. They will simply see a new username next to your picture when you update. It is advisable to send out an update to your followers before you change your username, because any replies or messages sent to your old username will not be associated with your account once you've changed to your new username.

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

• Your username appears in your profile URL and is unique to you. Usernames are used for login, @replies, direct messaging, and more. Your username appears alongside your profile image in friends' 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 your 140 characters on outgoing SMS updates and IM messages. 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 user names like cupcake25.
• Earlybirds: Early users of Twitter may have a username or real name longer than user names we currently allow. This is ok 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 modern regulations.