Character name generator
First and last names for the people in a present-day or recent story: twelve at a time, as many times as you like.
Free, with no sign-up. Every name is yours to use in anything you write, with no credit owed.
Names
Press a name to copy it.
Choosing a name
- Check the year they were born. Names follow fashions. A woman born in 1950 is more likely a Linda or a Susan than an Ava; look up the most popular names for your character’s birth year and country before you settle.
- Vary the first letters and the lengths. Two main characters called Mark and Matt blur on the page. Give the people who share scenes different first letters, syllable counts and sounds.
- Say it aloud, and search it. Read the full name aloud in a sentence, then search it: a real person with a public profile and the same name is worth avoiding for a villain or a scandal.
How these names are made
Every name is a whole first and last name from our own hand-written lists, a few hundred ordinary names from many backgrounds, written out in full rather than paired at random. We checked each against famous people and well-known characters, but a real person may still share it.
Nothing you generate is sent anywhere or saved: the names are picked in your browser.
In Author Sweets
Every character and place in an Author Sweets book has its own page in Planning, with the facts you keep about them and, under Also known as, the nicknames and titles the text uses, so Appears in finds every scene they are in whichever name is on the page.
Stuck on the scene rather than the name? Try one of the writing prompts, or browse the other name generators.