SSID stands for Service Set IDentifier and is a technical term for a networks name. It is a unique identifier for wireless networks and is used to create a hotspot and broadcast the network within its vicinity. When you see a list of available Wi-Fi networks on your device, you are looking at a list of SSIDs. The SSID acts as an access point so nearby devices, like laptops and smartphones, can locate and connect to it.
The SSID is typically broadcast in the clear by stations in beacon packets to announce the presence of a network and seen by users as a wireless network name). It can be up to 32 characters in length and can contain any Unicode text). Since the contents of an SSID field are arbitrary, the 802.11 standard permits devices to advertise the presence of a wireless network with beacon packets in which the SSID field is set to null). A null SSID (the SSID elements length field is set to zero) is called a "wildcard SSID" in IEEE 802.11 standards documents, and as a "no broadcast SSID" or "hidden SSID" in the context of beacon announcements, and can be used, for example, in enterprise and mesh networks to steer a client to a particular (e.g. less utilized) access point).
To connect to a Wi-Fi network, users see a list of all available Wi-Fi networks and use the SSID as a name to identify the particular network they want to use. It is important to note that an SSID is simply a network name that is used as an identifier. Most Wi-Fi networks also enable some sort of security—usually a WPA2 or WPA3 protocol. As such, users will need to get the password or key for the network in order to connect to it.
If you want to find your SSID, you can go to the Wi-Fi settings on your device. On Android, you can go to Settings > Wi-Fi and the SSID you are connected to will be shown above Connected. On iOS, you can go to Settings > Wi-Fi and the network name (SSID) you are connected to will have a check mark next to it. If you want to change your SSID, you can do so through your routers web interface.
