Name Generators by Culture, Language and Era

Names by culture, language and era. A page per country or language, from English and Irish through French, German, Spanish and Russian to Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Yoruba and Swahili, plus the historical pages: Roman, Ancient Greek, Egyptian, Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon, medieval, Victorian and the decades of the twentieth century.

Every Culture and language tool

1920s name generator

Jazz Age names, from Chester Vanderbeck III to Millie Kowalski the flapper.

1950s name generator

Post-war names from Linda Sue Patterson to Gary Kowalczyk and Brenda Whitfield.

1980s name generator

Eighties names from Jennifer Nicole Thompson to Jason Nguyen and Gemma Louise Hopkins.

Aboriginal Australian name generator (same care as above)

Present-day Aboriginal Australian names by region, real family surnames, no invented "tribal names".

American name generator

Classic, modern and Southern American names with middle initials and suffixes.

Ancient Egyptian name generator

Egyptian names built on the gods, with filiation and titles of scribes and priests.

Ancient Greek name generator

Classical Greek given names with son-of patronymics and city demotics, Athenian or Spartan.

Anglo-Saxon name generator

Old English dithematic names with patronymics, bynames and ranks, ash included.

Arabic name generator

Arabic names in modern or classical form with ibn, bint and al- nisbas.

Australian name generator

Modern Australian names, with an option for classic Aussie nicknames.

Brazilian name generator

Modern, classic and creatively spelled Brazilian names with two surnames.

British name generator

Names from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, by nation and gender.

Canadian name generator

English Canadian and Québécois names from the real Canadian surname mix.

Celtic name generator

Iron Age and early medieval Celtic names — Gaulish, Brittonic, Old Irish, Pictish.

Chinese name generator (with pinyin and characters)

Chinese names surname-first in pinyin, characters or both, with real given names.

Czech name generator

Czech names with -ová feminine surnames and correct háčeks, modern or classic.

Danish name generator

Danish names with -sen surnames and place names, classic or modern given names.

Dutch name generator

Modern and traditional Dutch names with van, de and van der.

English name generator

Traditional, modern and old-fashioned English names with surnames.

Ethiopian name generator

Ethiopian names built as given name plus father's name, Amharic, Tigrinya or Oromo.

Filipino name generator

Filipino names with Spanish surnames, double first names, middle names and nicknames.

Finnish name generator

Finnish names with -nen and -la surnames, Finnish or Swedish-Finnish, classic or modern.

French name generator

Modern, classic and aristocratic French names with hyphens and particles.

German name generator

Modern, classic and noble German names with the von particle.

Ghanaian name generator (day names)

Ghanaian names with Akan day names, Ewe and Ga names, and family surnames.

Greek name generator

Modern Greek names with -poulos and -poulou surname forms and regional endings.

Hawaiian name generator

Hawaiian given names, island surnames, and the English-plus-Hawaiian-middle-name form.

Hebrew / Israeli name generator

Modern Israeli, biblical and diaspora Hebrew names with ben and bat forms.

Hungarian name generator

Hungarian names in surname-first order, modern or classic, with Western option.

Icelandic name generator (patronymic rules)

Icelandic names with patronymics built from the parent's name, -son or -dóttir.

Indian name generator (Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi, Bengali)

Indian names by language, Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi or Bengali, each convention respected.

Indonesian / Malay name generator

Javanese, Malay, Batak and Bugis names, from single names to bin and binti forms.

Irish name generator

Gaelic or anglicised Irish names with Ó, Mac, Ní and Nic surnames.

Italian name generator

Modern, classic and southern Italian names with real regional surnames.

Japanese name generator (with kana and kanji)

Japanese names surname-first in romaji, kanji and kana, modern or classic.

Kenyan / Swahili name generator

Kenyan names by community and Swahili coastal names, with and without English first names.

Korean name generator (with hangul)

Korean names surname-first in romanisation and hangul, modern or classic given names.

Latin / Roman name generator (praenomen, nomen, cognomen)

Roman tria nomina, feminine gens names, freedmen and slave names, in the real system.

Latin American name generator

Two-surname names with regional first names from six Latin American countries.

Maori name generator

Māori given names, transliterated names like Wiremu, and whānau surnames with Te- forms.

Medieval name generator (English, French, German)

Medieval English, French and German names with occupational, locative and nickname bynames.

Mexican name generator

Modern and classic Mexican names with two surnames and Guadalupe compounds.

Native American name generator (handled with care)

Present-day Native American names by nation, with real family surnames, no invented "Indian names".

Nigerian name generator (Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa)

Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa names with the meanings and structures of each tradition.

Norwegian name generator

Norwegian names with -sen and farm surnames, classic or modern given names.

Pakistani name generator

Pakistani names with Muhammad prefixes, clan surnames and regional honorifics.

Persian / Iranian name generator

Persian names with modern -i surnames or Shahnameh names of ancient Iran.

Polish name generator

Polish names with -ski and -ska surnames, modern or classic, correctly spelled.

Portuguese name generator

Portuguese names from Portugal, mother-then-father surnames, modern or classic.

Romanian name generator

Romanian names with -escu and -eanu surnames, modern or classic, correctly spelled.

Russian name generator

Russian names with patronymics, gendered surname endings and diminutives.

Scottish name generator

Highland, Lowland and Gaelic Scottish names with clan surnames.

South African name generator (Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans)

Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans and English South African names, with or without English first names.

Spanish name generator

Spanish names with two surnames, modern or classic, from Spain.

Swedish name generator

Swedish names with -sson and nature surnames, classic or modern given names.

Thai name generator

Thai formal names with unique surnames, plus the short nicknames everyone uses.

Turkish name generator

Turkish names with meaningful surnames and modern or classic given names.

Ukrainian name generator

Ukrainian names with -enko surnames, patronymics and Ukrainian spellings.

Victorian name generator

Victorian names by class, from Lady Henrietta Fortescue to Nell Coggins the flower-girl.

Vietnamese name generator

Three-part Vietnamese names with Văn, Thị and modern middle names, diacritics optional.

Viking / Old Norse name generator

Saga-style Norse names with proper -son and -dottir patronymics and bynames.

Welsh name generator

Modern, traditional and ap/ferch patronymic Welsh names.

What the section covers

Every culture builds names differently, and the differences are the point. A Spanish name carries two surnames, one from each parent. An Icelandic name has no surname at all, only a patronymic that changes every generation. A Chinese name puts the family first and the given name second, and a Ghanaian name often records the day of the week the child was born. A Russian name has a patronymic between the first name and the surname, and the surname itself changes its ending for a daughter. The pages here reproduce those structures rather than just supplying a list of first names and a list of last names, so the output reads as a name from that culture and not as an English name with foreign parts.

How the names are built

Each page carries name lists drawn from the common stock of the culture and a set of patterns that assemble them in the right order with the right connecting pieces. Where a language writes in another script, the page shows the romanised form alongside the native one: characters with pinyin for Chinese, kanji with kana for Japanese, hangul for Korean. Where names are gendered, a gender select chooses the list; where a culture has distinct regional or linguistic traditions inside it, such as Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa in Nigeria or Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi and Bengali in India, the page has a select for those too.

The historical pages

The historical pages follow the conventions of their period. The Roman page builds a praenomen, nomen and cognomen; the Old Norse page attaches a patronymic and a byname; the medieval page picks from the English, French and German name stock of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries with occupational and locative surnames; the Victorian and decade pages draw on the names that were actually popular in those years, so a 1920s name and a 1980s name sound like they belong to different people.

Handled with care

Some naming traditions, including Native American and Aboriginal Australian names, are not a free stock of words to be recombined. Those pages explain how the conventions actually work and produce respectful, generic results rather than the stereotype tables that circulate elsewhere.

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