Byzantine Name Generator

Byzantine names are the names of the Eastern Roman Empire, which called itself Rhomania and spoke Greek from the fourth century until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Given names were overwhelmingly Christian and Greek: Konstantinos, Ioannes, Michael, Alexios, Andronikos, Nikephoros, Manuel and Theodoros for men; Anna, Eirene, Theodora, Maria, Eudokia, Zoe and Helena for women. Latin names like Justinian and Basil belong to the early centuries; by the tenth century the Greek stock dominated.

What makes a name feel Byzantine is the family name. From about the ninth century, aristocratic lineages used inherited surnames, and the great houses of Komnenos, Doukas, Palaiologos, Phokas, Skleros, Laskaris, Angelos and Kantakouzenos ruled, married and feuded for centuries. Family names take a feminine form for women, so a Komnenos has a daughter Komnene, a Doukas a daughter Doukaina, a Palaiologos a Palaiologina, and a Kantakouzenos a Kantakouzene. Members of the imperial family also stacked ancestral surnames, producing names like Alexios Komnenos Doukas or Theodora Palaiologina Raoulaina, and children born to a reigning emperor were called Porphyrogennetos, "born in the purple".

Commoners went by a given name plus a nickname, trade or origin: Psellos ("the stammerer"), Kekaumenos ("the burnt one"), Attaleiates ("from Attaleia"). Spelling can follow the Latinized convention (Constantine, John, Comnenus) or the Greek transliteration (Konstantinos, Ioannes, Komnenos); modern historians favor the Greek forms.