How to Change the Names of Menu items in the WordPress Backend

What are “Posts”? Sounds like a silly question for an everyday WordPress user. But for the client that may not be accustom to everyday WordPress lingo it gets downright confusing. So, let’s change the names! Simple enough. Let’s add some functions to your theme’s function.php file.

This function changes the “Menu Name”. So in this example, we are changing, “Posts” to “Blog Entries”.

// Changing WordPress admin Menu Names
function change_post_menu_label() {
    global $menu;
    global $submenu;
    $menu[5][0] = 'Blog Entries';
    $submenu['edit.php'][5][0] = 'Blog Entries';
    $submenu['edit.php'][10][0] = 'Add a Blog Entry';
    echo '';
}
add_action( 'admin_menu', 'change_post_menu_label' );

You can even change the name, “Categories” and “Tags” to fit your specific project:

// Changing WordPress admin Menu Names
function change_post_menu_label() {
    global $menu;
    global $submenu;
    $menu[5][0] = 'Blog Entries';
    $submenu['edit.php'][5][0] = 'Blog Entries';
    $submenu['edit.php'][10][0] = 'Add a Blog Entry';
    $submenu['edit.php'][15][0] = 'Status'; // Change name for categories
    $submenu['edit.php'][16][0] = 'Labels'; // Change name for tags
    echo '';
}
add_action( 'admin_menu', 'change_post_menu_label' );

You can also change the way the post object is edited and it’s names.

function change_post_object_label() {
        global $wp_post_types;
        $labels = &$wp_post_types['post']->labels;
        $labels->name = 'Blog Posts';
        $labels->singular_name = 'Blog Entry';
        $labels->add_new = 'Add a Blog Entry';
        $labels->add_new_item = 'Add a Blog Entry';
        $labels->edit_item = 'Edit Blog Entries';
        $labels->new_item = 'Blog Entries';
        $labels->view_item = 'View Blog Entries';
        $labels->search_items = 'Search Blog Entries';
        $labels->not_found = 'No Blog Entries found';
        $labels->not_found_in_trash = 'No Blog Entries found in Trash';
    }
add_action( 'init', 'change_post_object_label' );