WoW API: UnitName

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Returns the name and realm of the specified unit.

name, realm = UnitName("unit")

Parameters

Arguments

("unit")

unit

String - The UnitId to query (e.g. "player", "party2", "pet", "target" etc.)

Returns

name

String - The name of the specified unit, "nil" if not applicable (e.g., if the specified unit is "target" but the player has no target selected).

realm

String - The realm the specified unit is from. For "player" returns nil, for any other character on your own realm returns an empty string. This is as of 1.12

Example

local playerName = UnitName("player");
ChatFrame1:AddMessage('Hi my name is: ' .. playerName);

Result

Prints the player's name to the chat frame. e.g.

Hi my name is: Octon

Details

• UnitName("unit") (or any other unit) will return "Unknown Entity" (Actually the value of the UNKNOWNOBJECT global) if called before the unit in question has been fully loaded into the world.

• The realm return will be nil even if the player is from a different realm, if it is out of visible range.
• Realm name will not include server type

• Note that this function always returns two values even though the latter may be nil. The difference is usually moot, but there are some cases where it matters, e.g. tinsert(myTable, UnitName("player")), which would previously work, but will now cause errors. The fix is to put the expression in parenthesis: tinsert(myTable, (UnitName("player")) ).

• The default Blizzard UI defines GetUnitName(unit, showServerName) which only returns the unit name, but for characters from another server appends the server name (showServerName==true) or "(*)" (if showServerName==false).