Every phone, tablet, smartwatch, TV, and other Android-powered device has a model name assigned to it by the manufacturer. The name shows up in a few different places, including the desktop Play Store website, Google Assistant, and Google’s Find My Device tool. Sometimes the model name is easily recognizable (e.g. “Google Pixel 3” or “Nokia 7.2”), but in other cases, it can be an incomprehensible string of characters and numbers.
Some manufacturers are better than others when it comes to device names. Samsung is particularly bad, as most of its phones and tablets use names like “SM-A102U1” or “SM-G955F” instead of easily-recognizable product names. Chromebooks can also be difficult to identify in Google Play, since they are usually referred to by the hardware platform name (e.g. “coral” or “hatch”) instead of the laptop name.
These names aren’t very helpful.
Thankfully, Google makes it easy to rename your Android devices. Better yet, your changes are synchronized across all of Google’s services, so you don’t even have to set names in multiple places. Here’s how to do it.
How to rename your Android device
If you’re on a desktop browser, the easiest way to see your full list of devices (and change their names) is from the Google Play Settings. It displays every Android device registered to your Google account.
To change a device’s name, just click the ‘Edit’ button, type a new name, and click the ‘Update’ button when you’re done. Super simple. Your changes will be instantly synced across Google Assistant, the Play Store site, Find My Device, and anywhere else Google displays your connected devices.
The Play Store website doesn’t work very well on phones, so if you’re on a mobile device, it’s probably easier to open the Find My Device web page.
Your list of devices will be displayed at the top, and once you select the desired device, just tap the name to change it. Interestingly, the Find My Device app on the Play Store doesn’t let you change device names, only the website.
