How to rename yourself in Zoom, and make it stick

You join a Zoom call and your tile says “iPhone”, or your first name only, or a nickname from a personal account. You fix it in the meeting, and next week it’s back.

That happens because Zoom has more than one place your name can come from, and the quick fix only lasts for one meeting. This guide covers each of them, in the order that makes a change stick.

The three places your Zoom name comes from

1. Your Zoom profile. The display name on your account. Every meeting you join while signed in uses it.
2. The name you join with. If you join without signing in, or rename yourself before joining in the app, Zoom uses what you typed for that meeting.
3. A rename during the meeting. Lasts until you leave.

If your name keeps coming back wrong, it’s almost always because only the third one was changed.

Change your profile name (the one that lasts)

This is the fix that holds for every meeting. According to Zoom’s own guide:

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. Click your profile picture or initials at the top right, then Profile.
3. Click Edit under your name.
4. Fill in your first and last name, and the Display Name you want others to see.
5. Click Save.

From the desktop app, the route is the same: click your profile picture, then Profile, then My profile, which opens the web portal.

Can’t edit it? Your company’s Zoom admin may have blocked name changes, or set names to come from your single sign-on. In that case, the name comes from your company directory, and IT is the place to fix it.

Rename yourself for one meeting

Useful when you join from a shared device, or need to add something for this call only. During the meeting, in the desktop app:

1. Click Participants in the meeting controls.
2. Hover over your name and click the ⋯ button.
3. Click Rename, type the name, and click Change.

Two things can get in the way. The option only appears when the host allows it, through a setting called Allow participants to rename themselves, which admins and hosts can turn on or off. And you can’t rename yourself while you’re in a waiting room.

Why the name alone still isn’t enough

Once your profile name is right, every tile says who you are. It still doesn’t say what you do, or which company you’re with, and on a call with several people from different companies those are the questions people are actually asking.

The common workaround is to cram it into the display name: “Sam Whitlock · Recruiting Lead · Acme”. It works until the tile is small, or someone shares their screen and the labels shrink. It also has to be set again for every new role, and every person on a team formats it differently.

Put your name and title on your video instead

The more reliable answer is to put your name, title and company on the video itself, as a caption in the corner of your camera, so it shows the same way in every layout and every recording.

There are two ways to do it with Nametags in Zoom:

• The Nametags Zoom app runs in a panel inside Zoom. The first time you sign in, any empty field on your tag is filled in from your Zoom profile, including your display name and job title. Nothing else to install. See Nametags in Zoom.
• The Nametags desktop app appears as a camera called Nametags. Choose it under Settings → Video → Camera in Zoom, and your tag goes with you into Teams, Google Meet and Webex too. See Choosing the Nametags camera.

If you use both, the Zoom app notices the Nametags camera and asks you to pick one, so you don’t end up with two tags. Our guide to choosing between the Zoom app and the desktop camera goes through when each makes sense.

A quick checklist

• Set your Display Name in your Zoom profile, not in the meeting.
• If you can’t change it, ask IT: it’s probably coming from your directory.
• Use Rename only for one-off meetings, and check the host allows it.
• For your title and company, use a tag on your video rather than a longer display name.

For the same steps in Teams, Google Meet and Webex, see how to show your name and title on every meeting app.