How to change the AirDrop and Personal Hotspot name on iPhone or iPad

Don’t like how your iPhone or iPad name appears as Personal Hotspot or AirDrop on other devices? It’s easy to change that and use a more meaningful or helpful name. All you have to do is tweak your iPhone’s name, and we’ll show you how that’s done.

New iPhone Personal Hotspot name showing on Mac

Why change the Personal Hotspot or AirDrop name

If you’re trying to connect to your hotspot in a crowded place, having a generic name like “iPhone” may be confusing as there may be several open hotspots with the same name. Similarly, if you have multiple iOS devices, they all may be named just “iPhone” or “Your Name iPhone.” In such situations, changing the Personal Hotspot name will help you identify the iPhone you’re trying to connect to.

The same applies to AirDrop. For example, if someone is trying to send you a file, and all they see is “iPhone” or “iPad” with the standard iPhone/iPad logo. In that case, they may not be able to correctly choose your device and mistakenly send the files to someone else who also happens to have their iPhone named “iPhone.”

To address all this, you should use a clearly identifiable name.

Change iPhone or iPad’s AirDrop and Personal Hotspot name

  1. Open the Setting app and tap General.
  2. Tap About and hit the Name field.
  3. Type the new name and tap the done button on the keyboard.
Change iPhone name in settings which will also change the Personal Hotspot name

This new name is how your iPhone will identify itself from now. It will use this new name for all settings, including AirDrop and Personal Hotspot.

You can verify this by going to iPhone Settings > Personal Hotspot. If you don’t see the option, go to Settings > Cellular (or Mobile Data) > Personal Hotspot. Here you’ll see your changed hotspot name. This name will now appear on other devices when the switch for Allow Others to Join is enabled.

New iPhone Personal Hotspot name

Similarly, when someone is trying to AirDrop you, they will see this new name. However, if they have already saved your phone number or email (Apple ID email) as a contact, then your iPhone’s AirDrop name may appear as the name they have saved your information as.

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