Thanks kirubakaran, I did try the widget manager some years ago and didn't like it. I just need the user display name, nothing else. Am a minimalist type of guy!

$users = elgg_get_entities([
  'type' => 'user',
  'limit' => 1,
]);

echo $users[0]->getDisplayName();

The default query ordering is latest created.

Many thanks Steve - looks like this could work. Will try it and let you know.

the problem of updating Elgg in my opinion, is in appearance, after updating the site will become standard again, will not have to customize, it's all standard with the bundled plugins.

@lorena that's why you need to check out which plugins are available for the next Elgg version that you're going to upgrade to.

Many thanks to all who provided this very helpful information. Makes me wish I'd done the upgrades as they happened! Too bad it's the only solution if one wants to preserve one's database and have it work with the latest version. I may have to leave it till the dark days of winter return and I'm looking for something to do!

Again, many thanks to all.

I just realized this probably has to do with the original Groups plugin. Guess it was the same before I installed Group Tools.  The clue is the Warning message under the Owner field. I'll just upper case this in the language file and hope for the best. Thanks. (Everything otherwise is perfect so don't want to disable Group Tools to prove a point).