In Microsoft Excel, the column headers are named A, B, C, and so on by default. Some users want to change the names of the column headers to something more meaningful. Unfortunately, Excel does not allow the header names to be changed.
Instead, if you want to have meaningful column header names, you can do the following.
The same applies to row names in Excel. You cannot change the row names, or numbering, but you can add your desired row names in column A for the corresponding rows.
Click in the first row of the worksheet and insert a new row above that first row.
How to add or remove a cell, column, or row in Excel.
In the inserted row, enter the preferred name for each column.
To make the row of column names more noticeable, you could increase the text size, make the text bold, or add background color to the cells in that row.
After inserting the new row and adding column header names, if you want to hide the default column header names, follow the steps below to hide column and row headers.
- In Microsoft Excel, click the File tab or the Office button in the upper-left corner.
- In the left navigation pane, click Options.
- In the Excel Options window, click the Advanced option in the left navigation pane.
- Scroll down to the Display options for this worksheet section. Uncheck the box for Show row and column headers.
The column and row headers are now hidden. To display them again, re-check the box in step 4 above.
Related information
- See our column, Excel, and header pages for further information and related links.
- Microsoft Excel help and support.
