OneTaskBy Tim King · Updated
Random Name Generator
Random Full, First and Last Names by Gender and Region
OneTask is free, with no sign-up, and built by one person.
If this tool saved you time, a coffee helps keep new ones coming.
How the Random Name Generator works
This random name generator makes full names, first names or random surnames from 24 naming traditions, including English, Irish, Spanish, French, German, Polish, Arabic, Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Nigerian. Choose a region and a gender, say whether you want the whole name or one part, and the list fills in as you change the settings. Given names and surnames always come from the same tradition, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese names put the surname first, and Spanish and Portuguese names get two surnames.
What a random name generator is for
A random name generator produces plausible, ordinary names that belong to nobody in particular. The everyday uses are unglamorous: filling a test database, giving a placeholder character a label before the real one arrives, populating a mock-up with a list of customers, naming the walk-on parts in a story, or seeding a role-play with people the players have not met yet. In every one of those cases the name needs to sound real and to sound like it comes from the place it is supposed to come from, and that is the whole job of this page.
Why the region toggle matters more than the gender toggle
The mistake most random name generators make is to keep one big pile of first names and one big pile of surnames and draw from each independently. That produces names like Kenji Murphy or Priya Andersson — perfectly possible in a real, mobile world, but not what you want when you ask for twenty names and get twenty mismatched pairs. This page keeps each region's given names and surnames together and only crosses them when you leave the region on Any.
Region also decides the shape of the name. In English, French, German and most European traditions a name is a given name followed by a family name. In Spanish and Portuguese a person carries two surnames, one from each parent, and the generator writes both. In Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese the family name comes first, and the given name follows; the page keeps that order rather than flipping it into Western order, because a list that says Wang Wei is more useful for anything set in China than one that says Wei Wang. Korean given names are written with the conventional hyphen between the two syllables.
First name, surname, or the whole thing
Set Generate to First name only when you already have a surname or are naming a character who will only ever be called by their first name, and to Surname only when you need a list of family names for a school register, a company directory or a set of streets. With middle name adds a second given name from the same region and gender, which is the shape most English-speaking official forms expect; in Spanish and Portuguese it becomes the common compound given name, and in East Asian regions, where middle names are not a convention, it produces the plain two-part name.
Gender
Male and Female draw from the given names most commonly used for each in the region concerned. Any picks a gender at random for each name, so a list of twenty comes out mixed — and when a middle name is added under Any, both given names are drawn from the same gender rather than producing a Charlotte James Wilson by accident.
What it will not do
The lists are of common, well-attested names in each tradition; they are not a census, and they say nothing about any real person. There is no attempt to generate rare names, historical spellings or names from the many regions not on the list, and a name that does not happen to appear in the banks is not therefore unusual. If you need a fake identity with an address and a date of birth for testing a form, use the alias generator instead.
FAQ
Can I generate a random first name only?
Yes. Set Generate to First name only and the list contains given names alone, filtered by the region and gender you choose. Set it to Surname only for a list of family names, which is handy for registers, directories and street names.
Why does the surname come first for Chinese and Japanese names?
Because that is how those names are written and spoken. In China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam the family name precedes the given name — Tanaka Hiroshi, not Hiroshi Tanaka — and a generator that flipped them into Western order would produce something no local would write.
Why do Spanish names have two surnames?
Spanish and Portuguese naming convention gives a person a surname from each parent — traditionally the father's first in Spain and the mother's first in Portugal, although both countries now allow either order. The generator writes two surnames so that a Spanish or Portuguese name looks like one.
How random is it?
Each pick uses the browser's cryptographic random number source rather than a seeded shuffle, duplicates within a single list are discarded, and nothing is sent to a server. Reloading the page or pressing Generate produces an entirely new list.
Are these real people?
No. Each name is a random combination of a common given name and a common surname from the same tradition. Some combinations will inevitably coincide with real people's names, simply because common names are common, but nothing here is drawn from any record of actual individuals.
Can I get more than a hundred names?
The limit per list is one hundred. Press Generate again for another hundred; because the banks are combined at random, each run is different, and the results can be copied and pasted into a spreadsheet in as many batches as you need.
See also: all People tools, Fantasy & RPG, Sci-fi, Culture & Language, Online & Social, Business & Brand, Places & Things.
Related tools
Alias / Pseudonym Generator
Plausible aliases, initial-style pen names and fictional identity blocks.
Archaeologist Name Generator
Adventure archaeologists, digs, relics and rivals.
Baby Name Generator
Baby names by origin, letter and meaning, singly or as matched twins.
Biker Name Generator
Tough, funny and wild road names for motorcycle riders.
Character Name Generator
Realistic first and last names for fiction, by era.