How to change the name (user shown on the left) that is displayed in the linux terminal?

Command

sudo usermod -l NuevoNombre AntiguoNombre

Explanation

As indicated by the usermod documentation:

-l, --login NEW_LOGIN
    The name of the user will be changed from LOGIN to NEW_LOGIN. Nothing else is changed. In particular, the user's home directory name should probably be changed manually to reflect the new login name.

Whose translation would be:

-l, --login NEW_LOGIN
     El nombre del usuario se cambiará de LOGIN a NEW_LOGIN. Nada más cambia. En particular, el nombre del directorio de inicio del usuario probablemente debería cambiarse manualmente para reflejar el nuevo nombre de inicio de sesión. 

  

Note: You can either use sudo , or you can also log in as root and execute the command from there. Although it is highly recommended to log in as root , since there are processes that are executed by your user to which your terminal will show an error.

Real Example

  

Context: I currently have a user named username , I'm going to change the name, now it will be debian strong>, for this, I will start session as root and then just execute the previously explained command.

Note for Ubuntu

For the case that you use Ubuntu, I would recommend that you do the following:

1) Enter your terminal as root:

sudo -i

2) Change the root key:

passwd

3) Close session in Ubuntu. 4) Enter a virtual terminal, executing the combination:

Ctrl Alt F4

5) Log in as root .

6) Execute the command:

usermod -l NuevoNombre AntiguoNombre

7) Return to your graphic session:

Ctrl Alt F7

8) Log in.

If you only want to change the name that is displayed in the console, simply change the value of PS1 in ~/.bashrc

[eduen@EDUENPC ~]$ cat ~/.bashrc
#
# ~/.bashrc
#
alias subl="subl3"
alias ls="ls --color=auto"
# If not running interactively, don't do anything
[[ $- != *i* ]] && return
PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '

• \ u = username
• \ h = pc name
• \ W = current route

In your specific case

PS1='[Nuevo-Nombre-Usuario@\h \W]\$ '

Save changes and go.

You can also directly change the value in console

[eduen@EDUENPC Escritorio]$ PS1='[Prueba@\h \W]$'
[Prueba@EDUENPC Escritorio]$