Note: This information is now outdated with the introduction of the new Xbox 360 dashboard UI also known as NXE. Please follow the official guide on the Xbox support site [Link].

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According to my incoming search results there are many people getting to this blog unclear on how to change their Gamertag and even more unsure on what name to choose. I can definitely relate to the latter, ‘Fear the CAT‘ was not my original choice, but sadly ‘carocat’ and other forms of ‘Cat’ were taken. And I never quite fancied the ‘xxxCatxxx’ approach. After all it’s about originality and names like ‘XIo SnIPer oIX’ are hardly original!

Which reminds me, if the [apparently] South Korean person with the Gamertag ‘carocat‘ comes across this post and wants to change it to something else, feel free to contact me. :)

Before you change your name you obviously need to know what you want to change it to and this is a feature I miss from the original Xbox which had a Gamertag generator during the account creation in case all the names you wanted to choose were already taken. To this date I know of several people who created their account with that generator and most of them have pretty good names. Alas, it’s no longer there, so in case you’re unsure, there’s always online name generators for all sorts of things you can have a look at for some inspiration.

Just make sure you remember that Xbox Live accounts can only have a maximum of 15 characters including spaces, have to to start with a letter and cannot contain any special characters or symbols.

• Bandnamemaker.com
• Fantasy Name Generator
• BurnoutAholics Generator [I thought this one was pretty awesome]

And, to make sure the name you want isn’t taken already, search the MyGamercard.net Leaderboards.

Now I’ve never thought changing the Gamertag is such a difficult thing to do, but with each new update I’m finding it more and more difficult navigating the Dashboard and I’ve spent a lot of time looking for things in the wrong places and I’ve been using a 360 since release. It’s not actually difficult, but may this will help you:

• Switch on your Xbox360 and sign into the profile of the account that you want to change the name to.
• Select your Gamercard –> Edit Profile –> Gamertag.
• Select Continue.
• Type in the Gamertag you want to change it to. Remember, check for any mistakes as you would have to spend another 800 points if you notice them after you’ve changed it.
• Accept it.
• Pay the 800 points [at this point you can also press X to add more points if you don't have enough].

Voila, you have a new Gamertag.

Hope this works for you, any questions, you’re more than welcome to contact me.

And yes, you will keep all your friends and your Gamerscore. And you won’t need to update any other settings.

Cat