Costume Name Generator

Pun and sign costumes are the fastest: Formal Apology (suit plus a Sorry sign), Cereal Killer (cereal box plus toy knife), Identity Thief (name tags all over a shirt), Static Cling (socks safety-pinned to your clothes), Ceiling Fan (a Go Ceilings! sign and foam finger) and Error 404 Costume Not Found (the words on a plain shirt) all take under ten minutes.

Pick a pair or set that people already say together: Salt and Pepper, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Angel and Devil, Sun and Moon, Bonnie and Clyde, Cops and Robbers, or for groups a Deck of Cards, the Four Seasons or a Crayon Box. Each person should still be recognisable alone, so avoid ideas that only make sense when everyone stands in order.

Most of the list uses public-domain characters (Dracula, Medusa, Alice, Sherlock Holmes), generic archetypes (Plague Doctor, Flapper, Astronaut) or original puns and personas, so there is nothing to license for a school, office or town event. A few entries describe a well-known look generically rather than naming a trademarked character, which is deliberate.

Combine a title with a spooky or thematic noun: Madame, Countess, Professor, Captain or Sir plus Midnight, Cobweb, Pumpkinhead, Gravestone or Lanternjaw. Alliteration helps (Madame Macabre, Baron Bonebreaker), and a short title like Warden of the Pumpkin Patch reads well on an entry card and an announcer's list.