Pandas – Rename Column after Reset Index

In this tutorial, we will look at how to rename the column resulting from the reset_index() function in pandas with the help of some examples.

The pandas dataframe reset_index() function is used to reset the index of a dataframe and by default, it adds the previous index as a separate column in the dataframe (pass drop=True if you do not want to retain the previous index as a separate column).

Methods to rename the column resulting from reset_index()

If the index axis itself doesn’t have a name, the new column is added with the name “index”. You can, however, change the name of this column in the following ways –

1. For pandas version 1.5.0 and above, when calling the reset_index() function, pass the name you’d like the column (with the previous index) to have with the help of the names parameter. Pass a list of names if the dataframe has a multi-index.
2. Before using the reset_index() function, give the index axis the name you’d like the resulting column to have using the rename_axis() function and then apply the reset_index() function.
3. After applying the reset_index() function, apply the pandas dataframe rename() function on the resulting dataframe to change one or more column names as per your requirements.

Let’s now look at both these methods with the help of some examples.

First, we will create a dataframe that we’ll use throughout this tutorial.

import pandas as pd

# employee data
data = {
    "Department": ["Sales", "Sales", "Accounting", "HR"],
    "Age": [26, 28, 27, 32],
    "Salary": [70000, 80000, 72000, 66000]
}

# create pandas dataframe
df = pd.DataFrame(data, index=["Jim", "Dwight", "Angela", "Tobi"])

# display the dataframe
df

Output:

Here, we created a dataframe with some information about some employees in an office. You can see that the index in this particular dataframe is the name of the respective employee.

Now, if you were to apply the reset_index() function with default parameters. You’d get the previous index (we say previous index because the reset_index() function “resets” the index to the default integer index starting from 0) as a separate column.

df.reset_index()

Output:

Notice, that the column with the previous index has the name “index”. This is because the original index in the dataframe didn’t have a name for itself.

Now, if you’d like the new column to have a different name, you can use one of the following three methods –

1. In the call to the reset_index() function, specify the name you’d like the column with the original index data to have using the names parameter. Note that this method works only for pandas version 1.5.0 and above (as the names parameter was introduced to this function in the version 1.5.0).
2. Before applying the reset_index() function, give the index axis a name (the name you’d like the column to have), and then apply the reset_index() method.
3. After applying the reset_index() function, use the pandas dataframe rename() function to change the column names to your liking.

Let’s look at the three methods with examples.

Using the names parameter in the reset_index() function

The idea is to pass the name of the column with the original index data as an argument to the names parameter in the reset_index() function.

Note that the names parameter was introduced in the pandas version 1.5.0, so check your pandas version if this method is not working for you.

Let’s give the resulting column the name “Employee”.

# reset index with custom name for the new original index column
df.reset_index(names="Employee")

Output:

You can see that now the column with the original index data has the name “Employee”

Note that if your dataframe has a multi-index, you can pass a list to the names parameter.

Rename the axis before applying reset_index()

Here, we give the index axis a name (the name that we want the resulting column to have) and then apply the reset_index() function. You can rename an axis using the pandas dataframe rename_axis() function, which renames the index axis by default.

Let’s first display our original dataframe.

df

Output:

Let’s now use this method to rename the axis first and then reset the index.

# reset index with custom name for the new original index column
df.rename_axis("Employee").reset_index()

Output:

We get the same result as above. The original index data with the column name “Employee”.

Rename the column after applying the reset_index() function

In this method, we first apply the reset_index() function and then change the column name using the pandas dataframe rename() function.

First, let’s apply the reset_index() function and save the resulting dataframe.

# reset the index of the dataframe
df = df.reset_index()
# display the dataframe
df

Output:

Now, let’s rename the “index” column with the column name “Employee”

# rename column name
df = df.rename(columns={"index": "Employee"})
# display the dataframe
df

Output:

We now get the same result.

You might also be interested in –

• Pandas – Rename Columns After Merge
• Pandas – Rename Columns in Dataframe after Groupby
• Pandas – Rename Column Names
• Reset Index in Pandas – With Examples