Changelog

[1.0.2] - 2026-08-23

• Fixed a flood of errors on retail. Newer clients mark some strings as "secret": an addon may hold one but must not compare it or match against it, and doing so throws. Every place Alias reads text off the screen or a name from the game now checks first and leaves secret values alone. Nothing else changes on the classic flavours, which have no such values.

[1.0.1] - 2026-08-23

• A guild member whose name is also a guild rank, or the guild's own name, is renamed properly in the roster while the rank column beside them is left alone. Nothing about a piece of text says which of the two it is, so the roster is read by column instead of by matching text.

• Alias's own chat messages keep real names: "Kevin is now shown as Kevinito", not the alias twice. Suppressing the chat wrapper was not enough, because the finished line could still be claimed afterwards as ordinary on-screen text; the addon's output now carries an invisible marker that every mechanism honours.

• Guild ranks and guild names are left alone. A character aliased "Officer" was rewriting the rank column of every officer in the guild. Anything in angle brackets is treated as a guild tag too. This only affects matching by text: where the unit is known, the name is still replaced.

[1.0.0] - 2026-08-23

First release.

Rename any player character. The alias replaces their real name everywhere your interface shows it, for you only. Nothing is sent to the server or to other players.

Naming someone

• Right-click a player on a unit frame, in chat, in the guild roster or on the battleground scoreboard and pick Give Alias. Offline guild members work too, where the game opens no menu of its own.
• Or /alias add <name[-realm]> <alias>, /alias target <alias>, or the options panel, which lists every alias with both names side by side.

Where aliases show

• Chat: senders, whisper headers, system messages, and names inside a message.
• Unit frames: target, focus, party, raid, boss and arena, plus nameplates.
• Guild roster, battleground scoreboards, who list, friends list, group finder, inspect, right-click menus and tooltips.

It works with your interface, not just Blizzard's

Alias carries no list of supported addons. It finds the names itself, so ElvUI, VuhDo, Grid2, Cell, Shadowed Unit Frames, Plater, ThreatPlates, Spy, Details! and Recount are covered without addon-specific code, and so should be whatever you install next. Tooltips built by other addons are covered as well.

It never lies to your other addons

Only what is drawn on screen is changed. The game's name functions are never replaced, so your damage meter still records real names, kill-on-sight lists still match real players, anything that syncs keeps sending real names, and /invite still works.

Clicking and typing

Player links in chat keep the real character underneath, so clicking a renamed name still whispers, invites and targets the right person. Aliases are also accepted by /w, /invite, /kick, /promote, /demote, /ginvite, /gkick, /gpromote, /gdemote, /gleader, /friend, /removefriend, /ignore and /unignore.

Knowing who someone really is

Hovering a unit adds a grey Really: Name-Realm line to the tooltip. /alias who <alias> answers the same question from chat.

Options

Every surface can be switched off on its own, and aliases can be tinted in gold or any colour you pick. /alias profile reports what the name searching costs on your machine, in milliseconds.