American Name Generator

 Like many people, I like to rely on a random name generator for the names of incidental characters in the games I run. This is problematic in the context of a game set in the modern United States of America, because there isn't an ideal name generator that reflects America's diverse name origins, Anglicization and artifacts of assimilation, and other quirks. fantasynamegenerators.com is normally an all-star, but its American Name Generator just gives you English names, which works fine I guess but gives up on diverse name origins. Simply all-sending on behindthename.com's Random Name Generator does give you varied names, but has several problems for this application-- the names are generally quite "authentic" and almost never show signs of assimilation, the weighting of the names is based on how many names of different origins the website has rather than US demographics, and names of a particular culture aren't connected to surnames of that same culture.

I've put together a simple tool which will spit out American names, based on over 800 of the 2020 US census's top 1000 first names and some of the top 1000 surnames, supplemented by various surnames claimed by various nationalities. Especially useful were sites about immigrants to America and how their names often changed, allowing me to include, say, Swedish-American surnames descended from but distinct from Swedish-Swedish names. This generator definitely includes the first names and surnames of most Americans. If you grew up in the US, I can guarantee that this generator will give you the name of some of your old classmates, as well as various celebrities and famous folks.

There are a mountain of compromises and inaccuracies in this generator, but it gestures at genuine diversity of US names in approximate proportion to actual US demographics. I'm very happy to say that names strongly associated with a culture of origin in the US, like "Ivan" or "Guadalupe", are more likely to be paired with a culturally-associated surname, but well might be paired with another type of surname, reflecting the facts on the ground. Because the cultural proportions are based on the general demographics of the US as a whole, you'll notice that it might be out of proportion of the part of the country or the specific setting you're rolling for. Some Midwestern readers might be surprised at how many Hispanic names the generator spits out, for instance, while readers from the Southwest will feel like those kinds of names are under-represented. Names always take the form of personal name, then surname.

My biggest piece of advice for readers who want to tweak the results from this generator is to be more willing to tailor the first names to the surnames in the events of non-European characters. The list of most common personal names are all very English, somewhat Spanish, and sparse of almost everything else. Therefore, characters with, say, a Vietnamese surname will never have a Vietnamese personal name. While many people in the US really might a Vietnamese surname and a first name like John or Lindsey, there's plenty of Thanhs, Hieps, and Viets. Enjoy! You are ready for A D V E N T U R E ! ! !