How to rename column using ALTER TABLE in SQL?

Syntax

To rename a column using the ALTER TABLE command, here is the generic syntax:

ALTER TABLE table_name
RENAME COLUMN column_name TO new_column_name;

In MySQL, for the version before MySQL 8, you use ALTER TABLE ... CHANGE ... syntax:

ALTER TABLE table_name 
CHANGE [COLUMN] column_name new_column_name data_type(length);

In MS SQL Server, you can use sp_rename instead:

sp_rename 'table_name.column_name', 'new_column_name', 'COLUMN';

Example

We have table employees:

CREATE TABLE employees (
  emp_no int(11) NOT NULL,
  birth_date date NOT NULL,
  first_name varchar(14) NOT NULL,
  last_name varchar(16) NOT NULL,
  gender enum('M','F') NOT NULL,
  hire_date date NOT NULL,
  email text,
  PRIMARY KEY (emp_no)

And now we need to change the column birth_date to dob:

ALTER TABLE employees
RENAME COLUMN birth_date TO dob;

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