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About Character Namer

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Character Namer is a free collection of name generators for writers, game masters, roleplayers and anyone creating characters: fantasy peoples, D&D-style species, original characters, medieval and viking names, rapper names and more. There is no sign-up and nothing to install.

Who runs this site

Character Namer is operated by Brytin Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 14806911, registered office 5 Cleveland Place West, Bath, BA1 5DG).

How the names are made

  • Invented names come from rules we wrote. Each culture (elven, dwarven, orcish, draconic and the rest) has its own set of beginnings, middles and endings, written by us, with rules for how the parts join and which sounds belong together. We don't copy name lists from other websites, books or games.
  • Historical names come from public-domain records. The medieval and viking generators learn from lists of real names that we selected ourselves from medieval tax rolls and the Icelandic Book of Settlements, in editions old enough to be in the public domain (listed below). Every name says whether it is historical (in our list) or invented, and at most half of a list is historical.
  • Modern names come from US public statistics: common first names from Social Security card applications and common surnames from the 2010 Census. We don't use the names of celebrities.
  • Every name is checked before you see it: for readability, variety within a list, offensive words, ordinary English words and well-known characters and places from books, films and games. Automated tests run these checks on tens of thousands of names every time the site is built.

Your privacy in one line

No AI calls, no accounts and no server-side processing: names are generated in your browser, nothing you type is sent anywhere (including your name in the rapper generator's "from your name" mode), and your favourites stay in your browser. Theprivacy policy has the details.

Can I use these names?

Yes, for anything, including commercial work, free of charge. Names are generated and we claim no rights in them. Before you use a name for a product, brand or business, check that it isn't already someone's trademark.

Report a problem

If a name is offensive, is a real word, or belongs to a famous character, please emailhello@characternamer.com. Use Copy link under the generator so we can see the exact list you saw.

Advertising

The site is free to use and is intended to be funded by advertising. Ads never change the names a generator gives.

Trademarks

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast. Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

Attribution

The D&D name generator uses the species and class names of the SRD 5.2. The half-elf and half-orc name generators take their subject from the SRD 5.1. All the names and text on this site are our own.

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2 ("SRD 5.2") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 ("SRD 5.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

Sources of the real names