The Best Name Generators for Writers

If you're anything like me, you have trouble naming your characters, towns, magical creatures, legendary weapons, talking cars... et cetera. Sometimes it seems like all the good names are already taken. Some names are just too iconic to use anything that sounds similar-- Harry Potter, Bilbo Baggins, Jim Kirk. These are some of the best name generators I've come across.

Naque for Unique Names

Naque is one of the coolest name sites I've found. It's actually several different tools that all do slightly different things. One generates completely random words that you can use to name basically anything. It also has a word mixer, where you can enter up to five words and have them smashed together in basically all possible combinations. Great for creating mash-up names (Alixa? Christabel? Eogan?) or just playing around with words. 

Another Naque tool gives you random words to put into the word mixer. It also lists a bunch of words that you can use for different things-- cats, fish, domain names, fictional brands, and more. 

Seventh Sanctum

Everyone should know about Seventh Sanctum. Get the president on the phone about this place, seriously. Get NASA. Get the UN. Get my fifth grade English teacher. Get everyone.

Seventh Sanctum have name generators out the wazoo (whatever a wazoo is). Seventh Sanctum has name generators for aliens, elves, super villains, super heroes, cat girls, cat boys, cat people of indeterminate gender, space ships, pirate ships, fandom ships, and so much more. Evil organization needs a name? You got it. Need funny names for gag spells in your Harry Potter fanfic? There's a generator called the Grimoire of Questionable Spells. Seventh Sanctum even has a writing prompt generator to dig you out of the miry grasp of writer's block.

I'm not even scratching the surface on all the generators Seventh Sanctum has. It's bananas. Trust me, you'll spend hours just seeing what it can come up with. 

Fantasy Name Generators

Fantasy Name Generators is like a one-stop shop for basically any kind of fantasy name. I guess that's why it's called that. You can name battles, waterfalls, weapons, alien races, planets, coffee shops, residents of the Star Wars universe, magical schools... This place might be even more creative than Seventh Sanctum. Fantasy Name Generators also has a huge catalog of real-life names that you can use for fantasy characters. (You can even look them up on Behind The Name to make sure the meanings are what you want them to be.)

Ficticity Character Name Generator

This generator is fairly limited compared to all the others-- it only generates one male and one female name per page refresh. But sometimes simple is best, right?

The Forge

I've never used the Forge before today, but it's easy enough. It's a flash application that runs in your browser and allows you to create names for fantasy magic spells, places, characters, and more. Tell me how it goes if you decide to check it out. 

Fantasy Name Generator by Rinkworks

Rinkworks has all kinds of fun stuff-- don't spend too much time there instead of writing. With this name generator, you can set several different parameters for the names it spits out, including consonant frequency and country of origin. You can get super-complicated with the Advanced interface-- which requires an instruction page to use-- or just stick with the Basic interface for ease of use.

Fake Name Generator

This name generator will give you a fake address, email address, age, favorite color, vehicle, and much more. You can even set the ethnicity and country of origin for extremely authentic names. Use it for good, please, not evil.

Behind The Name

Okay, so this isn't a name generator, but it's way too useful not to include on this list.

Most writers know the age-old trick of researching names for their characters on a baby name website. But lots of baby name sites are full of inaccurate names and weird spellings that no one would ever really use. That's where Behind The Name comes in. 

I don't remember when or where I discovered Behind The Name, but I'm so glad I did. It has name etymologies, countries of origin, popularity, related names, namesakes-- all kinds of things. It even has the meanings of the name. Did you know Alaistair is the Scottish form of Alexander, which means 'protector of men'? I did. Thanks, Behind The Name!

If that wasn't enough, Behind The Name also has a surname sub-website. Not only can you research your character's (or your own) given name, you can look up the meaning of their surname as well.

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That's all I've got for today. Did I leave out something totally obvious? Do you have any favorite name generators or baby name websites? Share in the comments!