Dominican Name Generator

Dominican names follow the Spanish two-surname system: a child takes the father's first surname then the mother's, so the baseball star David Ortiz is formally David Américo Ortiz Arias. In daily life the second surname usually drops away. The most common surnames in the Dominican Republic are Rodríguez, Pérez, Martínez, García, Reyes, Sánchez, Díaz, Hernández, Peña and Jiménez, but the ones that sound unmistakably Dominican are Rosario, Tavárez, Polanco, Encarnación, Ureña, Brito, Paulino, Almonte, Feliz, Ogando, Disla and Guzmán. Surnames with de (de la Cruz, de los Santos, de Jesús) are also far more common here than in Mexico or Spain.

Given names split sharply by generation. Older Dominicans carry devotional and classical names: Altagracia (after the country's patroness, the Virgen de la Altagracia), Ramona, Mercedes, Josefina, Hipólito, Radhamés, Bienvenido, Porfirio. From the 1970s onward, parents began inventing names beginning with Y and W, and these are now the signature of the island: Yudelka, Yokasta, Yesenia, Yaritza, Yuleisy, Wander, Wilkin, Wáscar, Starlin, Yordano. Taíno names such as Anacaona, Caonabo, Enriquillo and Quisqueya are used as proud first names, and English names like Franklin, Elvis, Nelson and Robinson are common thanks to baseball and New York ties.

The list mixes everyday single- and double-surname names with national heroes, merengue and bachata stars, and major-league players, accents included.