Microsoft Teams: Edit Display Name in Meetings
Posted on: 04/13/2025
Microsoft Teams is rolling out a fantastic new feature that allows you to customize your display name during meetings. This enhancement is perfect for personalizing your presence and ensuring your name appears just how you want it to.
For example, my default name is Menard, Chris, but I prefer Chris Menard - Microsoft Certified Trainer, or Chris Menard - Your Company Name. Now you can change it.
Edit Display Name in Teams Meeting
Steps to change your display name:
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While in a Teams Meeting, select ๐ฃ๐ฒ๐ผ๐ฝ๐น๐ฒ button in your meeting controls.
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In the Participants pane, hover over your name and select ๐๐ค๐ง๐ ๐ค๐ฅ๐ฉ๐๐ค๐ฃ๐จ (three dots) > ๐๐ฑ๐ถ๐ ๐ฑ๐ถ๐๐ฝ๐น๐ฎ๐ ๐ป๐ฎ๐บ๐ฒ. See the image above.
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Enter your desired name and select ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐๐ฒ
Edit your display name for this meeting
YouTube Video
Requirements for Edit Display Name to Work in Teams Meetings
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For this to work, your Organization's Administrator must enable the feature. See details below under Requirement 1.
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The Meeting Organizer must turn this on for their meeting in Meeting Options. See details below under Requirement 2.
Important notes:
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This is a meeting-by-meeting feature. There is no global setting for it to be turned on for every meeting.
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Only the meeting organizer can enable this feature.
Requirement #1 - Policy Change by Organization Admin
To access this feature, it must first be enabled by your organizationโs admin using this policy. This feature is turned off by default for all tenants.
-ParticipantNameChange
This setting will enable Tenant Admins to turn on/off participant renaming feature. By default, this policy is turned off.
Possible Values: Enabled: Turns on the Participant Renaming feature. Disabled: Turns off the Particpant Renaming feature.
Microsoft support page
Requirement #2 - Turn on Edit Display Name in Meeting Options
The Meeting Organizer can go to Meeting Options before sending out the meeting invite or after the invite has been sent
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In Meeting Options, select Participation on the left.
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Turn on the toggle to Let people edit their display name.
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Click Apply.
Meeting Options in Teams - Let people edit their display name
Notification During a Meeting
After joining a meeting, you will see a message that People can change their display name. This is a nice feature that notifies users that they can edit their names during a meeting.
Join meeting - people can change their display name
Microsoft Roadmap
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Roadmap ID 122934
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Platform(s): Desktop, Mac
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Link
Microsoft Teams Roadmap - Meeting participants edit display name
Potential Use Cases for Teams Edit Display Name Meetings
This new feature opens up several possibilities for enhancing communication and organization within Teams meetings:
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Adding location information: Participants can include their city or office location in their display name.
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Indicating roles or departments: Users can add their job title or department to their name for clearer context.
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Language indicators: In multinational meetings, users could add language preferences to their names.
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Project-specific tags: Team members could add project names or codes to their display names for project-focused meetings.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: Can I set the display name editing feature as a default for all my meetings?
A: The feature needs to be enabled individually for each meeting. You cannot set it as a default for all meetings you organize.
Q: Will edited display names be visible to external participants?
A: Yes, edited display names are visible to all meeting participants, including external and anonymous users.
Q: Does changing the display name in a meeting affect my name in other Teams contexts?
A: No, the display name change is specific to the meeting and does not affect your name in chats, teams, or other areas of Microsoft Teams.
Q: Can meeting organizers restrict what participants can change their display names to?
A: Currently, there are no restrictions on what participants can change their display names to.
Q: Will the attendance report show the original or edited display names?
A: No, the attendance report maintains a record of participants' actual names.
As Teams continues to evolve, features like editable display names demonstrate Microsoft's commitment to improving the virtual meeting experience. Stay tuned for more updates and enhancements to make your Teams meetings even more productive and personalized.
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Chris Menard
Chris Menard is a Microsoft Trainer (MCT) and works as a full-time Trainer at BakerHostetler - one of the largest law firms in the US. Chris runs a YouTube channel with 900+ technology videos that cover various tools such as Excel, Word, Zoom, Teams, Gmail, Copilot, Google Calendar, and Outlook. To date, the channel has helped over 20 million viewers.
Menard also does 2 to 3 public speaking events yearly, presenting at the Administrative Professional Conference (APC), the EA Ignite Conference, the University of Georgia, and CPA conferences. You can connect with him on LinkedIn at https://chrismenardtraining.com/linkedin or watch his videos on YouTube at https://chrismenardtraining.com/youtube.
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