Apocalypse Name Generator

Post-apocalyptic names are earned, not given. When the old world falls, birth names get replaced by what a person does, what they lost or what they look like: Doc, Sawbones, Half-Face, Three-Finger Jack, The Man Who Sold Water. Fiction from Mad Max to Fallout, The Road, Station Eleven and Metro 2033 leans on this because a nickname tells the reader a survivor's whole history in two words. The most common patterns are scrap and machinery (Ratchet, Rebar, Diesel, Nitro), scavenger animals (Coyote, Vulture, Roach), radiation and disaster vocabulary (Fallout, Geiger, Halflife, Zero Hour) and old-job titles that outlived their institutions (Preacher, Warden, Sheriff, Marshal).

Warlords and cult leaders take grander names, often with a definite article and a territory: The Salt Queen, The Butcher of Barstow, The Prophet of Ash. Ordinary survivors, on the other hand, are often just plain people with plain names, which is why Ruth Kessler or Ezra Holt hits harder in a bleak story than another Shadow Reaper would. Gangs and settlements borrow from the roads and infrastructure they hold (The Vultures of I-40, Silo Seven, Bunker Nine, Bartertown).

Mix the three layers, birth name, wasteland nickname and faction, and the world starts to feel lived in.