if, on the other hand, they're populated with imported data, wait for further input.
Create a new, temporary admin account. For example, create a new admin named "god". Then:
- Log in as "god".
- Go to System Preferences → Accounts
- Right-click (or control-click) on the account you want to rename. From the contextual menu that pops up, select the only entry, "Advanced".
- In the dialog that appears, change the name(s) and home folder of the account.
- Quit System Preferences.
- If the home folder didn't get renamed automatically, do it manually by opening Terminal in the "god" account, and entering the command:
sudo mv /Users/oldname /Users/newname - Log in as the old admin (thereby verifying that the account still works).
- Go to System Preferences → Accounts, and commit theocide. (i.e., kill "god").
It took me years to work up the courage to do that to an admin account that I wished had been named differently. When I finally did it, it worked like a charm! (Although, when I did it, I renamed the old user's home folder before going to System Preferences → Accounts → Advanced, so I'm not sure whether it would have been done for me automatically.)
The only downside is that Time Machine will see the renamed home folder as entirely new, and back it up again in its entirety. I tried to head it off by renaming its backup of the home folder, but Snow Leopard's Mandatory Access Controls thwarted that. Even root cannot alter a TM backup.
You still have the option of asking TM to delete the old home folder from the backup. That'll get back the disk space, at the expense of losing your history. But then, I gather you don't have much history yet.
