How to change your Xbox LIVE Gamertag

View products that this article applies to.

SUMMARY

This article describes how to change your Gamertag.

Back to the top

If you have an Xbox 360-based Xbox LIVE account/subscription, you can easily change your Gamertag at your discretion for Microsoft Points. With Xbox 360, if you are an Xbox 360 user, you can purchase a Gamertag change in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for 800 Microsoft Points.

To change your Gamertag, follow these steps:

Go to the My Xbox section of the Dashboard.
Collapse this imageExpand this image
Highlight your profile, and then press the A button.
Select Edit Profile.
Collapse this imageExpand this image
Select Gamertag.
Collapse this imageExpand this image
On the Change Gamertag screen, review the information regarding changing your Gamertag, and then select Continue.
On the Enter Gamertag screen, make the changes that you want.
Confirm the purchase of 800 Microsoft Points.

Back to the top

Changing capitalization in your Gamertag

Xbox LIVE does not see different Gamertags as unique if the only difference between them is whether certain letters are uppercase or lowercase. For example, Xbox LIVE sees “gamerTAG123” and “GAMERtag123” as the same Gamertag.

Therefore, when you change your Gamertag by purchasing a Gamertag change through the Xbox LIVE Marketplace, you cannot change only the capitalization of the letters. For example, you cannot change “GaMiNgRoCkS” to “gamingrocks.”

However, you can make this kind of change in your Gamertag by purchasing a second Gamertag change. This method lets you use an intermediary Gamertag that Xbox LIVE will accept.

Note You can use this method if you want to change only the selection of which letters are capitalized in your Gamertag. However, we do not recommend that you do this because your Gamertag may be lost in the process. When you make the first Gamertag change in this method, your original Gamertag becomes available for anyone on Xbox LIVE to use as their new Gamertag. If you choose to follow these steps, make sure that you complete the second Gamertag change in this method immediately to minimize the possibility that another user will select some variation of your current Gamertag before you do.

For example, you can change “gamerTAG123” to “GAMERtag123.” To do this, follow these steps:

Purchase a Gamertag change from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
Change your current Gamertag to a completely different Gamertag by using the steps that are mentioned earlier in this section. For example, change “gamerTAG123” to “temporary111.”
Immediately purchase a second Gamertag change from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
Immediately change the Gamertag that you created in step 2 to the new Gamertag that you want. For example, change “temporary111” to “GAMERtag123.”

Back to the top