In this guide, we will cover how to display a user’s name in a WordPress menu. This will require a bit of knowledge with working with code snippets and general shortcodes in WordPress.

This solution will create a custom shortcode or variable, {{username}} to be inserted in any WordPress menu and then replace this variable with the user’s actual display name. This is great if you want to create a meta menu that points to a user’s profile page of some sort that says “Welcome admin“.

To add a custom code snippet to our WordPress site, without worrying about losing functionality in WordPress you may follow this guide.

<?php
/**
  * Show a user's display name/user name in a WordPress menu.
  * Once this code is added to your site, you may add {{username}} to the link text.
  * Follow this guide to add code to your WordPress site - https://yoohooplugins.com/customize-wordpress/
  *
  * Full guide here - https://yoohooplugins.com/display-username-wordpress-menu/
  */
function yh_display_username_wp_menu( $menu_items ) {
    global $current_user;
    foreach ( $menu_items as $menu_item ) {
        if ( strpos( $menu_item->title, '{{username}}' ) !== false ) {
            // Get username, otherwise set it to blank.
            if ( $current_user->display_name ) {
                $username = $current_user->display_name;
            } else {
                $username = '';
            }
                $menu_item->title =  str_replace( '{{username}}',  $username, $menu_item->title );
        }
    }
    return $menu_items;
}
add_filter( 'wp_nav_menu_objects', 'yh_display_username_wp_menu' );

Once the code snippet is added, it will replace the variable {{username}} with the user’s display name. To add this variable to your WordPress menu please take the following steps:

1. Login to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Navigate to Appearance and select Menus.
3. Choose your menu you would like to add the username to.
4. Find or add a menu item you would like to show the username in and click on the dropdown arrow.
5. Edit the Link Text and add {{username}}
6. Save your menu.
7. Repeat this for each menu you would like to show the username in.

If you have any questions or feedback regarding this code snippet, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.

Photo by Adam Solomon on Unsplash | Code reference taken from (and altered): https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/196453/displaying-logged-in-user-name-in-wordpress-menu