1920s Name Generator

Names from the 1920s have a distinct texture. The most common American given names of the decade were Robert, John, James, William and Charles for boys, and Mary, Dorothy, Helen, Betty and Margaret for girls, but the era is remembered for names that have since fallen out of use: Clarence, Elmer, Floyd, Mildred, Thelma, Gladys, Opal and Velma. Those are the names that instantly signal the Jazz Age to a modern reader.

Surnames tell the other half of the story. The 1920s United States was shaped by huge waves of Irish, Italian, Polish, German and Jewish immigration, so a realistic cast mixes old-stock names like Whitfield, Prescott and Bancroft with Marchetti, Kowalski, Rosenbaum and Callahan. Nicknames were everywhere too, from newspaper gangsters like Bugsy and Legs to flapper monikers like Kitty, Trixie and Bunny.

This 1920s name generator combines period-accurate first names with surnames from the era's real demographic mix, plus a handful of Prohibition-style nicknames. Use the formal names for society characters and the nicknames for speakeasy regulars, bootleggers and chorus girls.