Is it possible for a user to change their username?

Not that I want to, but I noticed that many people sign up with a name like "new2asp" or "Idontknowsh*t" and I couldn't help but wonder what they might do if they become true experts in the field and are stuck with a n00b username.

Do they have to create a new account and lose their post count and rep points?

Well I hope assume (and hope) that a decent, mature convesation with an adminstrator would result in such accomplishment.

Depending on how the information is stored -- sometimes the user name is the primary key and is foreign keyed to other tables making it darn near impossible to change.

I fear this is not really possible... one has to consider the nickname very carefully when registering. the username is unique and probably the primary key as far as I've seen it's never been changed - not even by admins here. and ppl asked them to...

It would most likely mean loads of work for an Administrator to change the primary/foreign keys in all of the tables. Thus, they probably wouldn't want to do it!

if I was the one to design the database, I would make one single table holding the user details e.g. name, password, email and such stuff, would give this table auto-number primary key and use this in all other tables. having such design, changing user name is trivial update statement... but I'm not sure that's the actual design of devshed forums database. I'll move this thread now to forum where the admins look hopefully we'll get answer.
edit: ok, thread moved to Feedback&Suggestions forum.

Yeah, thats how id probably design it as well. Unlikely its done here though!

It has been done before. A couple of people at Dev Shed got their
usernames changes. The two that come to mind are 'codergeek42'
and 'worldbuilder' who used to be 'php4geek' and 'cwjsb' [i think]
respectively. I believe they just submitted tickets at esupport and
asked for their names to be changed...