OneTaskBy Tim King · Updated
Hungarian Name Generator
Magyar Names in Surname-First Order, Classic or Modern, With Western Options
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How the Hungarian Name Generator works
Use this hungarian name generator to fill a shortlist in seconds. Generate Hungarian names the Hungarian way, surname first: Nagy Hanna, Kovács Bence, Tóth István. Hungarian is the one European language that puts the family name before the given name, and this generator keeps that order by default, with a Western option for stories set abroad. Choose modern or classic, female, male or either, and generate up to a hundred.
Hungarian name generator: the patterns behind each name
Hungarian shares the surname-first order with Chinese, Japanese and Korean and with no other European language, because Magyar is not Indo-European and puts the general before the specific throughout: the date is year, month, day, the address is city, street, number, and the name is family, given. Kovács János is Mr Kovács, whose given name is János. Hungarians reverse the order when writing for foreigners, John Kovacs, and the Western option produces that, but in Hungary, on documents, in newspapers and in speech, the surname comes first. There are no middle names in the Western sense, though a second given name is allowed and appears now and then.
The surnames are a short list carried by a large population, and most describe a trade, an origin or a feature. Nagy is big, the commonest name; Kovács the smith; Tóth the Slovak; Szabó the tailor; Horváth the Croat; Varga the cobbler; Kiss small; Molnár the miller; Németh the German; Farkas the wolf; Balogh left-handed; Juhász the shepherd; Mészáros the butcher; Fekete black; Fehér white; Oláh the Romanian; Török the Turk; Magyar the Hungarian. The names of neighbours, Tóth, Horváth, Németh, Oláh, Török, are a record of a country that has always been surrounded, and Lakatos and Orsós are typical of the Roma minority.
Given names must be chosen from an official list, so the stock is stable and Hungarian in form: Erzsébet not Elizabeth, István not Stephen, László, Ferenc, Zoltán, Attila, with the Magyar revival names of the last century, Csaba, Ildikó, Emese, Réka, Levente, Zalán, Botond, Zsombor, drawn from legend and chronicle. The classic stock, given from the 1940s to the 1980s, is the saints and kings, István, László, József, János, Mária, Erzsébet, Katalin, Ilona. The modern stock is short, Hanna, Anna, Zoé, Léna, Bence, Máté, Dominik, with the legendary names still strong.
The accents matter and the double acute on ő and ű is a Hungarian letter found nowhere else. For the neighbours in Western order, the Czech and Romanian pages; for the other surname-first systems, the Chinese, Japanese and Korean pages.
FAQ
Why is the surname first?
Because Hungarian grammar puts the general category before the specific one throughout the language. Kovács János is Mr Kovács. This is the native order on all documents; the reversed order is used only when writing for foreigners or in foreign languages.
How do I know which part is the surname?
In Hungarian order it is the first word. Nagy, Kovács, Tóth, Szabó and Horváth are the five commonest surnames, and a Hungarian name beginning with one of them is in Hungarian order. Given names like István, János, Mária and Erzsébet are never surnames.
What does né mean in a woman's name?
A traditional married name: Kovács Jánosné is Mrs János Kovács, the wife of János Kovács, with her own name unstated. It is still legal and common among older women, though most now keep their own name or hyphenate.
Are the accents necessary?
Yes. Á, é, í, ó, ö, ő, ú, ü and ű are separate letters and change both sound and meaning. Nemeth and Toth are foreign spellings; Németh and Tóth are the names.
Can I use these names for fiction or test data?
Yes. They are combinations of ordinary names and cannot be owned. Nagy and Kovács are each carried by over two hundred thousand people, so a common combination will coincide with real people; a name that will be attached to something public deserves a quick search.
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