Renaming Columns in Pandas

Renaming Columns in Pandas is one of the basic but most important processes while doing data analysis or cleaning to give a meaningful name so that anyone can easily understand the data. In this article, we will discuss different methods of renaming columns in Pandas with the help of examples.

When the raw data is imported into pandas for analysis, sometimes it has messy names, so you need to rename the columns with a meaningful name. Pandas offer different methods to rename the name of columns/indexes, such as rename (), add_prefix (), add_suffix (), set_axis (). This article will briefly discuss different methods of renaming columns in Pandas.

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Table of Content

• Create a DataFrame
• Methods of Renaming Columns using
  • rename () function
  • set_axis () function
  • add_prefix (), add_sufix () function
  • dataframe.column () function
    • Rename all columns
    • Replace specific characters in columns

Before discussing different methods of renaming columns in pandas, let’s set up the data first, i.e., we will create a data frame to perform the actions on it.

Also Read: How to read and write files using Pandas

Create a DataFrame

Input

Output

We will now use the above data frame (faculties) to better understand renaming columns in pandas. 

Also Read: Series vs. DataFrame in Pandas

Methods of Renaming Columns

rename () function

rename () function in pandas is used when we need to make changes in selected columns since we have to specify the name of the columns that have to be renamed.

Example: Change the column’s name from ‘Name’ to ‘Professor.’

Input

Output

Also Read: Adding Columns to Pandas DataFrame

set_axis() function

set_axis() function assigns the required index to either a column or index axis.

To rename the column name set:

• axis = ‘columns’ or
• axis = 1

Example: Change the column’s name from Name Department, Subject, and Number of class to A, B, C, and D.

Input

Output

Also Read: Working with Date and Time in Pandas

add_prefix(), add_sufix() function

We can also change the column’s name by adding relevant prefixes (start of the column name) and suffixes (end of the column name).

Example: Add ‘column_name:’ and ‘.’ before the start and end of the given column name, respectively.

Input

Output

Also Read: Data Cleaning using Pandas.

dataframe.column() function

• Rename all columns

We can rename all the columns of any DataFrame by the rename () function and the set_axis() function. But using dataframe.column (), we can directly rename the names of columns.

• Here, we have to assign a list of name corresponding to the name of the column that we need to change.
• The only limitation of this method is that it changes the name of all columns, even if we only want to change in fewer columns.

Example: Change the column’s name from Name Department, Subject, and Number of class to col_A, col_B, col_C, and col_D.

Input

Output

Also Read: Sorting Data using Pandas.

• Replace specific characters in columns

Till now, we have learned how to rename the columns in pandas using different methods. But how will you do that if we have to remove any specific character or word in the columns’ names?

Let’s make it simple; from the above example, remove (or replace) ‘col’ from the name of each column.

So, to do that, we will use DataFrame.columns.str.replace() function

Input

Output

Also Read: Difference between loc and iloc in Pandas.

Conclusion

In this article, we have briefly discussed different methods of renaming columns in pandas with the help of examples.

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