Memorable NPC Name Generator

This post was first published in Nov 2020, and updated in Jan 2023.

As any Dungeon Master will attest, but particularly any who write and publish their own adventures, coming up with vaguely credible names you don’t hate for all your NPCs is a major pain in the @&$€.

Something I’ve found myself leaning into recently is the classic ‘epithet + noun’ formula for NPC surnames. Names such as:

Blacktooth
Greyclaw
Swiftfoot
Brightswan
Silverspear

I like these types names for several reasons:

1) When you find a good combination it usually sounds convincing!

2) As these compound surnames consist of familiar words, they are easy for you, and perhaps more importantly for your players, to remember – and pronounce.

3) You can hint at the character’s physical appearance, attributes or personality, by dint of giving them an aptronymic moniker. It can be spectacularly unsubtle like ‘Bloodfist’ or ‘Skullbasher’, or just a name that resonates with the right ring for that person, hinting at their personal qualities, without going so far as literally describing them. Lavinia Brightswan was a powerful mage I created for my adventure the Gleaming Cloud Citadel.

Gile Ravenplume takes a break from gladiator training…

Anyway, having decided I liked these kind of compound names, I started jotting down words that might make up one half of a good surname. Whenever I try to pull something out of thin air I tend to inevitably get a fairly small pool of results revolving around the words ‘black’ ‘star’ ‘storm’ ‘gold’ ‘fist’ ‘jaw’ ‘hand’ etc., and I figured that some kind of table or chart with a much larger word pool would be of great assistance.

Now I know there are plenty of great name generators out there (I list a few at the bottom of this page)! But none quite as specific as the one that I would ideally like to be able to refer to.

A couple of days, and lots of word association later, here it is… please bear in mind that it’s not just for generating heroic names, like Thunderlust and Dawnwarden, but good old commoner names too like Cherrycheeks or Beetlebag… in fact, it’s arguably more for the latter, as these are the folks that need naming, but we’d really rather not have to put too much effort into. I think this table solves that problem.

How To Use This Name Generator

Let me start by saying that you will need to do at least a bit of legwork yourself here. The generator does NOT feature finalised names.

Some of the epithets and nouns found on the same line might work well together as written, but the idea is to choose a word you like and then find its perfect match elsewhere on the table (throwing words randomly together rarely does it for me!). Rather than have the table go on forever, I saw there was space for four components on each line, and I think this rather increases the usability of the generator, as you can quickly mix and match various combinations even on the same line… NOTE: many of the epithets and nouns can be reversed to good effect!

If you do want to try more random results, here’s a little number generator you can use (NOTE: I wanted to embed this, but the widget creates some major spacing issues on my page! Sorry, for now you’ll have to keep it open in a separate tab).

Currently, my table has 208 lines. My suggestion here is start by generating one random line and picking your favourite word from it. Then continue to generate random lines until you get a satisfactory match for the character you’re trying to name!

As you will notice I also add some first names too. I tend to prefer archaic real world names as much as possible, as they have an air of familiarity that lends them credibility. Sometimes I slightly modify them, or spell them differently. The names I made up I tried to keep short and punchy, so that I and my players can remember them. The first names are not meant to match with the other components on the line… (especially given, as I mentioned, that the other components are not supposed to match with themselves even). Once you have a good surname, select the first name with a good ring to it. I like a bit of alliteration myself.

More Name Generators

Codexnomina.com – Search for your fledgling hero’s name by world, race / species or class using this powerful generator, which also has very useful weapon, monster and place name suggestions.

Fantasynamegenerators – does what it says on the tin. And more. There are hundreds of categories and subcategories, and seemingly infinite suggestions – although you’ll have to pan for gold amongst the river murk. Some of the best categories IMHO are the real world names. I like to mine some more obscure countries/nationalities for some gems.

Storyshack – I had to come up with a name for a paladin I’m creating for a friend to play in a new game, and I stumbled across this site via Google search. I ended up using one of their suggestions, which is quite rare! (Normally I use the generators for inspiration). Haven’t tested the other D&D subcategories much, but looks like a good amount of high quality suggestions.

Behindthename – For first names I like long lists of archaic names to choose from, such as this one.