Cannibal Name Generator

Cannibal characters in fiction fall into a few recognizable types, each with its own logic. The backwoods clan (Texas Chainsaw, The Hills Have Eyes, the Sawney Bean legend) uses Old Testament or rural American first names with blunt, slightly off surnames: Jebediah Crawl, Ezekiel Hatchet, Lurleen Quill, Pa Gutteridge. The refined man-eater is the opposite: a doctor, count or chef with a cultured name that hides the appetite, in the Hannibal Lecter or Sweeney Todd mold, like Dr. Aurelian Vane or Chef Grimshaw. Tribal and dark-fantasy cannibals take harsh, guttural names with an eating epithet, as in Ghorak Bone-Eater or Oggra Stewmother, and suit orc, ghoul or wasteland-raider factions.

The fourth family is the pure epithet, all appetite and no birth certificate. Old Gristle, Rawhead, Needle Tooth Ned and Mouth of the Hollow are what villagers whisper about a thing in the woods. Butchery, cookery and anatomy vocabulary (cleaver, tallow, marrow, rennet, long pig) is the richest source, because the double meaning does the horror work. Folklore helps too: Rawhead and Bloodybones, the wendigo and the hidebehind are all hunger spirits older than modern horror.

Match name to tone. A slasher family needs names you can shout; a literary villain needs one that sounds respectable at dinner; a fantasy warband needs names players can pronounce across the table.