Elizabethan Name Generator

Authentic English Renaissance names from court to alehouse

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Generate Elizabethan names drawn from parish registers, court rolls and playhouse accounts of the English Renaissance: gentry and courtiers, yeomen and goodwives, players and spies, plus the era's pet forms, titles and Puritan virtue names.

About Elizabethan names

Elizabethan England (1558 to 1603) drew its given names from a surprisingly small pool. Parish registers show that roughly half of all boys were christened John, Thomas, William, Richard or Robert, and half of all girls Elizabeth, Mary, Anne, Margaret, Joan or Alice. What made a name feel individual was everything around it: the pet form used at home (Kit, Hal, Ned, Bess, Nan, Moll, Tib), the title that marked status (Sir and Lady, Master and Mistress, Goodman and Goodwife), and a surname that told you a family's trade, village or lineage.

Beneath the common names sat rarer ones that sound unmistakably of the period. Old saints' names like Frideswide, Etheldreda and Cuthbert survived the Reformation in the countryside, classical and romance names like Hercules, Lucretia, Tristram and Penelope crept into gentry families, Puritan households began choosing Temperance, Prudence and Silence, and forms like Isott, Emmot, Jennet and Dousabel were everyday in the north and west. Surnames ranged from great houses (Devereux, Sackville, Throckmorton) to trades (Bowyer, Chandler, Hosier) and places (Whitcombe, Calverley, Ashby).

This list mixes original names built from those real registers with the famous courtiers, players and adventurers of the age, so you can pick anything from a believable Warwickshire glover's wife to a name fit for the Privy Council.

How to choose Elizabethan names

  • Match rank to the form of the name: a courtier is Sir Walter Devereux or Lady Frances Vavasour, a substantial townsman Master Nicholas Pym, a farmer Goodman Ralph Tanner and his wife Goodwife Agnes Tuck. Plain first-plus-surname works for anyone.
  • Use pet forms in dialogue and formal names in documents, exactly as the period did: Christopher Marlowe was Kit to friends, Elizabeth was Bess, Richard was Dick, Mary was Moll or Mall.
  • For a convincing commoner, pair a very common first name (John, Joan, Thomas, Alice) with a trade or place surname; for gentry, choose a rarer classical or Norman-French given name with a landed family surname.
  • Virtue names like Temperance, Patience and Mercy and Old Testament names like Keziah, Hephzibah and Josias signal a godly or Puritan family, which was a real social marker in the 1580s and 90s.
  • Avoid names that only became common later, such as Victoria, Charlotte, Amelia or Oscar; they break the period illusion instantly.

Frequently asked questions

What were the most common Elizabethan names?

For men: John, Thomas, William, Richard, Robert, Henry, Edward, George, Nicholas and Francis. For women: Elizabeth, Mary, Anne, Margaret, Joan, Alice, Agnes, Jane, Katherine and Dorothy. Together these covered the majority of all baptisms in the period, which is why a real-sounding Elizabethan cast should have several Johns and Elizabeths in it.

Are these real historical people?

Most names are original combinations of given names and surnames attested in sixteenth-century English records. A smaller set are well-known Elizabethans such as Walter Raleigh, Mary Sidney, Richard Burbage and Bess of Hardwick, included because they are the names people most often search for when researching the era.

How did titles like Goodman, Goodwife and Mistress work?

Sir and Lady were for knights and their wives, Master (Mr) and Mistress (Mrs, regardless of marital status) for gentry and prosperous citizens, Goodman and Goodwife (Goody) for yeomen, husbandmen and craftsmen, and no title at all for servants and labourers. Using the wrong one for a character was a social insult.

Can I use these names for a Renaissance faire persona or historical fiction?

Yes. The list is designed for faire personas, novels, tabletop and LARP characters set in Tudor or Stuart England, and genealogy-style writing. Pick a register that suits your character's station, and use the pet forms when people address each other informally.

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All 500 Elizabethan names

This is the complete list the generator above draws its random batches from, sorted A to Z and grouped by first letter.

Plain text, one name per line.

A: 36 names

  • Abigail Hyde
  • Abraham Slater
  • Adam Prideaux
  • Agatha Waldegrave
  • Agnes Fairclough
  • Agnes Henslowe
  • Alban Tichborne
  • Alfonso Ferrabosco
  • Alice Drake
  • Alison Brograve
  • Ambrose Killigrew
  • Amphillis Cavendish
  • Amy Rogers
  • Anne Clifford
  • Anne Hathaway
  • Anne Russell
  • Anne Vavasour
  • Annis Dethick
  • Anselm Vachell
  • Anstice Copley
  • Anstice Montagu
  • Anthony Holborne
  • Anthony Standen
  • Anthony Wakefield
  • Appoline Calverley
  • Appoline Pole
  • Arthur Cooper
  • Arthur Gregory
  • Audrey Tresham
  • Austin Bassett
  • Austin Tregian
  • Avelina Ferrers
  • Avelina Mordaunt
  • Avis Mordaunt
  • Aylmer Chettle
  • Aylmer Cooper

B: 20 names

  • Bab Munday
  • Baldwin Whorwood
  • Barbara Conyers
  • Barbary Ellerker
  • Barnaby Fiennes
  • Bartholomew Rokeby
  • Bathsheba Poyntz
  • Beatrice Scrope
  • Benedict Yaxley
  • Bennet Babington
  • Bennet Courtenay
  • Bess Hardwick
  • Bet Dekker
  • Bevis Bulmer
  • Bevis Morley
  • Blanche Parry
  • Blanche Verney
  • Brian Drayton
  • Brian Selby
  • Bridget Heneage

C: 20 names

  • Cadwallader Bowyer
  • Cadwallader Vaughan
  • Caleb Paston
  • Cassandra Yelverton
  • Catherine Carey
  • Charity Strickland
  • Christabel Fermor
  • Christian Heron
  • Christopher Wingfield
  • Cicely Bramston
  • Cis Fitton
  • Clemence Petre
  • Clemence Whitcombe
  • Clement Carey
  • Clement Prideaux
  • Collet Lestrange
  • Collet Tyrwhitt
  • Constance Collingwood
  • Cornelius Bagot
  • Cuthbert Denny

D: 20 names

  • Damaris Wentworth
  • Dame Agnes Fitton
  • Dame Cicely Markham
  • Dame Gartred Allard
  • Dame Joan Killigrew
  • Daniel Chandler
  • Deborah Bromley
  • Dennis Grenfell
  • Dennis Kytson
  • Denzil Shirley
  • Dick Burbage
  • Dionis Knollys
  • Doll Nashe
  • Dorcas Wadham
  • Dorothy Throgmorton
  • Dousabel Lumley
  • Dousabel Pemberton
  • Drue Drury
  • Drue Sadler
  • Dudley Poulett

E: 36 names

  • Ebbot Chamberlain
  • Ede Brydges
  • Edith Lucas
  • Edmund Hawtrey
  • Edward Dyer
  • Edward Squire
  • Edward Tanner
  • Eleanor Lisle
  • Elinor Fletcher
  • Elizabeth Carey
  • Elizabeth Clifford
  • Elizabeth Knollys
  • Elizabeth Quiney
  • Elizabeth Throckmorton
  • Elizabeth Vernon
  • Ellen Brydges
  • Ellin Corbet
  • Ellis Eliot
  • Ellis Purefoy
  • Eme Dormer
  • Emilia Lanier
  • Emlyn Tanfield
  • Emma Seymour
  • Emmanuel Sadler
  • Emmot Pennington
  • Emmot Underhill
  • Erasmus Wharton
  • Etheldreda Bramston
  • Etheldreda Hakluyt
  • Eustace Hatton
  • Eustace Wainwright
  • Evan Mallory
  • Evan Penrose
  • Everard Stafford
  • Everard Tregian
  • Ezekiel Cartwright

F: 16 names

  • Fabian Carnsew
  • Fabian Kelway
  • Faith Aske
  • Ferdinand Leigh
  • Ferdinando Morley
  • Florence Piper
  • Fortune Fuller
  • Foulke Bowes
  • Frances Howard
  • Frances Walsingham
  • Francis Knollys
  • Francis Throckmorton
  • Frideswide Fanshawe
  • Frideswide Willoughby
  • Fulke Berkeley
  • Fulke Greville

G: 36 names

  • Gabriel Holles
  • Gartred Gargrave
  • Gawain Constable
  • Gawen Bertie
  • Geoffrey Gilbert
  • George Thatcher
  • Gerard Carey
  • Gerard Tuke
  • Gertrude Fettiplace
  • Gervase Cholmley
  • Gervase Markham
  • Gervase Pole
  • Gilbert Gifford
  • Gilbert Vavasour
  • Giles Zouche
  • Gillian Brandling
  • Goddard Cartwright
  • Goddard Frobisher
  • Godfrey Kytson
  • Godfrey Penrose
  • Goodeth Gascoigne
  • Goodeth Kelway
  • Goodman John Draper
  • Goodman Piers Noke
  • Goodman Ralph Tanner
  • Goodwife Agnes Tuck
  • Goodwife Alice Mercer
  • Goodwife Joan Webster
  • Goodwife Sisley Gedge
  • Grace Beaumont
  • Grace Mildmay
  • Gregory Popham
  • Griffith Coningsby
  • Griffith Trelawny
  • Grisell Hesketh
  • Guy Spenser

H: 20 names

  • Hal Condell
  • Hamlet Lovell
  • Hamnet Wyndham
  • Hamond Marlowe
  • Helen Hussey
  • Helewise Hoskins
  • Henry Lyte
  • Henry Unton
  • Henry Wrottesley
  • Hephzibah Cradock
  • Hercules Lowther
  • Hester Webster
  • Hilary Lamplugh
  • Hodge Tarlton
  • Honor Stapleton
  • Hugh Gorges
  • Hugh Plat
  • Humfrey Brokesby
  • Humfrey Cholmondeley
  • Humphrey Calverley

I: 9 names

  • Idony Hawtrey
  • Idony Wainwright
  • Ingelram Marbury
  • Ingram Widdrington
  • Isaac Harper
  • Isabel Radclyffe
  • Isabella Whitney
  • Isott Vere
  • Isott Wakefield

J: 35 names

  • Jack Heminges
  • Jacquetta Eliot
  • Jacquetta Radcliffe
  • Jael Googe
  • Jane Cecil
  • Jasper Dacre
  • Jeffery Quarles
  • Jenet Jenyns
  • Jenkin Lestrange
  • Jenkin Swinburne
  • Jennet Ashcombe
  • Jennet Glover
  • Jeremy Brewer
  • Jerome Purefoy
  • Jerome Scudamore
  • Joan Alleyn
  • Joan Bellamy
  • Joan Hart
  • Jocelyn Kyd
  • Jocosa Jerningham
  • John Ashby
  • John Bull
  • John Fowler
  • John Gerard
  • John Stow
  • John Wilbye
  • Josias Falconer
  • Joyce Bacon
  • Judith Bridges
  • Judith Chetwynd
  • Judith Sadler
  • Jug Armin
  • Juliana Talbot
  • Julius Ashfield
  • Julius Ferrers

K: 5 names

  • Kate Tarlton
  • Katherine Hastings
  • Kenelm Delaval
  • Keziah Draper
  • Kit Marlowe

L: 23 names

  • Lady Amphillis Englefield
  • Lady Dorothy Stourton
  • Lady Frances Vavasour
  • Lady Katherine Egerton
  • Lady Margaret Willoughby
  • Lancelot Harington
  • Launcelot Errington
  • Lawrence Willoughby
  • Leonard Carew
  • Lettice Raleigh
  • Lettice Tyrwhitt
  • Lewis Clerke
  • Lewis Stafford
  • Lionel Isham
  • Lionel Poyntz
  • Lodowick Curwen
  • Lora Trelawny
  • Loveday Kingsmill
  • Luce Strangways
  • Lucretia Hungerford
  • Lucy Harington
  • Ludovic Alleyn
  • Lydia Cope

M: 51 names

  • Mabel Throgmorton
  • Madeleine Jermyn
  • Madge Bacon
  • Magdalen Grenville
  • Magdalen Vavasour
  • Marable Lyttelton
  • Margaret Clitherow
  • Margaret Hoby
  • Margaret Neville
  • Margery Whitcombe
  • Marian Vernon
  • Marjorie Musgrave
  • Marmaduke Byrd
  • Martha Tyrell
  • Martin Arundell
  • Mary Arden
  • Mary Devereux
  • Mary Fitton
  • Mary Herbert
  • Mary Shelton
  • Mary Sidney
  • Master Bartholomew Piper
  • Master Gregory Glover
  • Master Humphrey Thatcher
  • Master Jeffery Cobham
  • Master Nicholas Pym
  • Mathias Selby
  • Matthew Digby
  • Maud Throckmorton
  • Maurice Berkeley
  • Maurice Ridley
  • Mawde Skipwith
  • Maximilian Kempe
  • Meg Jonson
  • Mercy Markham
  • Merial Newdigate
  • Michael Bassett
  • Miles Sheffield
  • Millicent Paulet
  • Mirabel Stourton
  • Mirabel Tyler
  • Mistress Alice Selby
  • Mistress Anne Fairclough
  • Mistress Ellen Tallow
  • Mistress Joan Quickly
  • Mistress Loveday Unwin
  • Mistress Margery Bowyer
  • Moll Cutpurse
  • Morgan Carew
  • Morgan Hart
  • Mungo Osborne

N: 11 names

  • Nan Burbage
  • Nathaniel Hosier
  • Ned Alleyn
  • Nehemiah Thynne
  • Nell Hariot
  • Nest Woodhouse
  • Nevill Gorges
  • Nicholas Berden
  • Nicholas Fortescue
  • Nicholas Hilliard
  • Nowell Ireland

O: 11 names

  • Obadiah Arundel
  • Old Matthew Hosier
  • Olive Lucy
  • Oliver Lovell
  • Oriel Oglander
  • Orlando Gibbons
  • Osbert Henslowe
  • Osmund Gawdy
  • Ottiwell Rowse
  • Owen Clifton
  • Owen Strangways

P: 23 names

  • Parnell Stanhope
  • Pascal Throckmorton
  • Patience Fenwick
  • Penelope Ratcliffe
  • Penelope Rich
  • Percival Brereton
  • Peregrine Pigott
  • Peter Fleetwood
  • Petronella Lumley
  • Petronella Wotton
  • Pexall Greene
  • Pexall Tempest
  • Philadelphia Pakington
  • Philip Gawdy
  • Philip Mildmay
  • Philippa Darcy
  • Phoebe Sheldon
  • Piers Hungate
  • Posthumus Fairfax
  • Posthumus Pagett
  • Priscilla Kniveton
  • Prosper Darrell
  • Prudence Puckering

R: 30 names

  • Rachel Drury
  • Radegund Crowther
  • Radegund Stanhope
  • Ralph Crewe
  • Ralph Sadler
  • Randal Manners
  • Randal Wadham
  • Raphael Knightley
  • Raynold Ashley
  • Rebecca Stanley
  • Reginald Poulton
  • Reginald Scot
  • Reynold Norris
  • Rhys Arundell
  • Rice Tracy
  • Richard Carew
  • Richard Tallow
  • Richard Topcliffe
  • Robert Burton
  • Robert Carey
  • Robert Gascoigne
  • Robert Greene
  • Robert Johnson
  • Robert Poley
  • Robin Armin
  • Roger Manwood
  • Roger Stourton
  • Rosamund Fitton
  • Rose Ashby
  • Rowland Wroth

S: 35 names

  • Sabine Bowyer
  • Sampson Allen
  • Sarah Bassett
  • Saunder Moyle
  • Scholastica Darcy
  • Scholastica Tempest
  • Sebastian Lyly
  • Sence Bellamy
  • Sence Courtenay
  • Sibella Brokesby
  • Sibella Heneage
  • Silas Windsor
  • Silence Ogle
  • Silvester Fairfax
  • Simeon Howard
  • Simon Savile
  • Sir Ambrose Copley
  • Sir Anthony Wingfield
  • Sir Denzil Kempthorne
  • Sir Edward Tresham
  • Sir Hugh Throckmorton
  • Sir Nicholas Bramston
  • Sir Rowland Stanhope
  • Sir Thomas Hoby
  • Sir Walter Devereux
  • Sisley Southwell
  • Solomon Lodge
  • Stephen Godolphin
  • Susan Mompesson
  • Susanna Bulstrode
  • Susanna Hall
  • Swithin Dee
  • Swithin Gibbons
  • Sybil Radcliffe
  • Sybilla Danvers

T: 32 names

  • Tabitha Blount
  • Tacey Egerton
  • Tacey Wingfield
  • Tamsin Selby
  • Temperance Hoby
  • Theodosia Cutler
  • Theodosia Paulet
  • Theophilus Sandys
  • Thomas Ashcombe
  • Thomas Campion
  • Thomas Harriot
  • Thomas Hill
  • Thomas Nashe
  • Thomas Phelippes
  • Thomas Sackville
  • Thomas Tomkins
  • Thomas Tusser
  • Thomas Weelkes
  • Thomas Wilson
  • Thomas Wyatt
  • Thomasin Langdale
  • Thomasine Chaloner
  • Thurstan Percy
  • Tib Peele
  • Timothy Coverdale
  • Tobias Gresham
  • Tom Pope
  • Tristram Cokayne
  • Troth Chaloner
  • Troth Dowland
  • Tryphena Baxter
  • Tryphena Gorges

U: 2 names

  • Urian Herbert
  • Ursula Sackville

V: 3 names

  • Valentine Tallis
  • Vincent Musgrave
  • Vivian Hakluyt

W: 22 names

  • Walter Copley
  • Walter Mildmay
  • Warham Allen
  • Warham Dowland
  • Watkin Sidney
  • Widow Annis Littleton
  • Widow Margery Fuller
  • Widow Parnell Crowther
  • Will Kempe
  • William Camden
  • William Harrison
  • William Parry
  • William Pennington
  • William Turner
  • Wilmot Gibbons
  • Winifred Hawkins
  • Winifred Pemberton
  • Wolstan Heywood
  • Wolstan Tallis
  • Wymark Fairclough
  • Wymark Grenfell
  • Wymond Dudley

Y: 1 name

  • Young Hal Fletcher

Z: 3 names

  • Zacharias Manners
  • Zachary Mercer
  • Zouch Orrell