The Internet makes it easy to come up with plenty of names thanks to name generators. Before the Internet researching potential character names involved the use of baby name books, encyclopedias, phone books and other resources. Some of these resources are still useful if they provide background information on names. Today, writers also have the benefit of name generators, which can help when trying to come up with character names for a novel or short story. These name generators are also used by gamers and people trying to generate names for social media. The name generators also get very specific so you can create a name for a certain type of fantasy character or a name associated with a person from a certain region or nationality.

Name Generator Sites

Behind the Name: This generator site can create all types of names. It all provides the etymology and history behind first names.

Name Generator: This site generators all types of names. You can generate a random name or filter and sort by gender, popularity, birth year, country, personality and many other properties.

Fantasy Name Generators: This page in our Fiction section describes some of the best fantasy name generators available.

Specific Name Generators

In addition to the general name generators described above you can also use generators to create names for a specific race or class, or even twins. Here are a few examples:

Twin Names Generator: The Twin Names Generator is a fun tool lets you create twin names. It can be a two females, two males or a boy and a girl.

Surname Generator: Already have a first name for your character but you need a last name? There are a generators to help. Springhole has a Surname generator for random last names. Another last name generator lets you provide the first name and provides with the surname/

Japanese Name Generator: Specific name generators can also create regional names, such as a name for a Japanese man or woman. The Japanese name generator at Fantasy Name Generators will create 10 random names at a time. You can choose to see only female or male names.

More Regional and Time Period Names: Looking for names associated with a specific region and/or race? Select the "Real Names" tab on Fantasy Name Generators and you will find hundreds of options including Ancient Greek names, Australian names, Czech names, Chinese names, German names, Native American names, Russian names and many more. You can also generate names relevant to particular time periods with name generators. For example, Springhole offers a Victorian Name Generator, which may be useful for historical romance writers.

Superhero Names: Are you looking for a hero? A couple good hero name generators can be found at Name Generator and Fantasy Name Generators. A few interesting hero names we generated include The Steel Wolfman, Incognito and Mister Penance.

Medieval Names: Medieval names can also be generated online. You can generate up to 100 at a time at Mithril and Mages. There is also a medieval name generator at Fantasy Name Generators.

Rapper Names: Do you need a rapper character for you story? There are even generators for these types of names if you are unable to brainstorm a good one. Name Generator will generate a rapper name for you based on some information you supply. You can also generate a random rapper name. A similar generator to try is the Gangsta Name generator.

Pirate Name: Are there pirates in your story? If you need help coming up with some cool pirate names you could try the Springhole Pirate Name Generator, which gives you five names at a time. It will also generate entire pirate characters for you. There's also a pirate name generator at Name Generator Fun.

Fantasy Characters: There are several good generators available for coming up with fantasy characters names. We describe several of them on our Fantasy Name Generators page.

You can find more information about building rich characters in our character section.