Villain name generator
A name a reader will remember and be a little afraid of. Fantasy gives titles and epithets; present day gives the quiet, ordinary names real antagonists tend to have.
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
- Ordinary can be scarier. Outside fantasy, a villain called Bob Henshaw who runs the school board can frighten more than a Mortimer Blackwood. The menace is in what they do; let the name sound like a neighbour’s.
- Earn the epithet. A title like the Smiling or the Collector is a promise. Show the reader why they are called that before anyone says it.
- Avoid the obvious sounds. Names stacked with Mor-, Mal- and -ax read as villains from the first page. One hard sound is enough; the rest can be a surprise.
How these names are made
Both styles come from lists we wrote out in full: fantasy villains are invented names with their titles and epithets; present-day villains are ordinary names with the role that gives them power, and a family role always fits the name.
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.