Gilded Age Name Generator

Society, servants and strivers of 1870 to 1900

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Get full names for Americans of the Gilded Age, from Augusta Van Alstyne and Mrs. Cornelius Wetherill to Bridget Mulcahy and Alderman Timothy Hanrahan. The 500 names cover old New York society, new industrial money, household staff and the city around them.

About Gilded Age names

The Gilded Age, roughly 1870 to 1900, takes its name from the 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, and its names sort people as firmly as its ballrooms did. At the top sat the old New York families of Dutch and English descent, the Knickerbockers, with surnames such as Van Alstyne, Beekman and Ten Eyck and given names handed down for generations. Pressing in on them were the new fortunes from railroads, steel, meatpacking and silver in Pittsburgh, Chicago and San Francisco, where a Horace Pettibone Stokes might carry his mother's maiden name in the middle.

How a name was written mattered as much as the name. A married woman was Mrs. with her husband's full name, so Mrs. Cornelius Wetherill. The eldest unmarried daughter was simply Miss Van Alstyne, and her younger sisters added a given name, as in Miss Lavinia Beekman. Sons repeated their fathers as Jr. and III. Nearly half of this list carries a form of that kind.

The rest of the city is here too: household staff, many of them Irish, English, Swedish or German, clerks, shopgirls, reporters and aldermen, immigrant families of the tenements, doctors, ministers and teachers, and the pet names of the summer colony at Newport.

How to choose Gilded Age names

  • Choose the form by who is speaking. A society column prints Mrs. Hamilton Beekman, an invitation goes out from Mr. and Mrs. Gerard Van Alstyne, and friends at Newport use a pet name such as Birdie or Tessie.
  • Set old money against new for instant conflict: a Miss Verplanck or Miss Ten Eyck courted by Elias Crane Jr. or Horace Stokes Jr.
  • In the grandest houses, following English practice, upper servants went by surname, as in Mr. Wetherby the butler and Mrs. Bascombe the housekeeper, while maids such as Bridget Mulcahy were called by their first names.
  • Match given names to birth years. A matron of 1885 was born around 1840 and is an Augusta, Lavinia or Henrietta, while her debutante daughter is more likely a Mabel, Effie or Blanche.
  • The titles on the list are made up. Lady Thornleigh, née Stokes shows both sides of a transatlantic match without borrowing a real peerage.

Frequently asked questions

What names were common in the Gilded Age?

In the America of the 1880s the most common given names were John, William, James, George and Charles for boys and Mary, Anna, Emma, Elizabeth and Margaret for girls, with Minnie close behind. Society families also turned family surnames into first names, which is why the list has Schuyler Van Wyck and Winthrop Hasbrouck beside plainer names such as Minnie Feeney and Frank Dillingham.

How was a married woman addressed in the Gilded Age?

Formally she took her husband's whole name, as in Mrs. Hamilton Beekman or Mrs. Elias Crane, and a couple appeared together, as in Mr. and Mrs. Percival Ten Eyck. Her own given name was for family and close friends. The list has more than 60 names in the Mrs. form and 10 couples.

What is the difference between Jr., II and III?

By the usual convention, Jr. is a son who has exactly his father's name, and III is the third in a direct line. II is for a boy named after another relative, such as a grandfather or an uncle. The list has all three, as in Elias Crane Jr., Theodore Van Ness II and Hamilton Beekman III.

Are these real families or characters from the TV series?

Neither. The surnames are period surnames that many families bore, the list leaves out the best-known dynasties of the era, and titles such as Countess of Ashmere are invented. The names are meant for your own characters and are not taken from the television series The Gilded Age or from novels of the time.

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All 500 Gilded Age 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: 39 names

  • Abraham Lott Remsen
  • Abraham Remsen III
  • Abraham Teitelbaum
  • Adelaide Verplanck
  • Adolph Reinhold
  • Agnes McGlynn
  • Albert Simcox
  • Alderman August Buchholz
  • Alderman Hugo Steinmetz
  • Alderman Jacob Rosenfeld
  • Alderman Michael J. Tooley
  • Alderman Timothy Hanrahan
  • Alfred Pickering
  • Algy Satterlee
  • Alice Costigan
  • Alvah Norcross Hoyt
  • Ambrose Kissam
  • Amos T. Holcomb
  • Andrej Hudak
  • Angus MacQuarrie
  • Anna Kratochvil
  • Anna Sofia Lundgren
  • Annie Finnerty
  • Annie Sheehy
  • Anson Drake Jr.
  • Anson Whitlow Drake
  • Antonio Santoro
  • Archibald Prime Howland
  • Archie Verplanck
  • Arthur Penhallow
  • Arthur Wendell Tate
  • Asahel Winton
  • Assemblyman Thomas Noonan
  • Assunta Ferraro
  • August Dietz
  • Augusta Van Alstyne
  • Augusta, Countess of Ashmere
  • Augustus "Gus" Beekman
  • Augustus Klopfer

B: 14 names

  • Barnaby Cole
  • Baroness von Hohenrath, née Klopfer
  • Baronne de Chastenoy, née Rawlins
  • Bartholomew Tighe
  • Bayard Van Ness
  • Beatrice "Birdie" Pell
  • Beekman Varick III
  • Bertie Van Wyck
  • Bessie Tuohy
  • Bessie Wolfson
  • Big Jim Geoghegan
  • Birdie Wetherill
  • Blanche, Countess of Ravensholme
  • Bridget Mulcahy

C: 31 names

  • Caleb Sturtevant
  • Captain Michael Gilfoyle
  • Carmela Russo
  • Caroline Beekman
  • Carrie Dugan
  • Casimir Oberholtzer
  • Catherine Breslin
  • Celia Hawkins
  • Charles Bracken
  • Charlotte Gansevoort
  • Chauncey Ludlow
  • Chester A. Munson
  • Clara, Marchioness of Wrexcombe
  • Clarence Nye
  • Clarence Van Brunt Jr.
  • Col. Ephraim Babbitt
  • Commissioner John T. Feely
  • Comtesse de Valmorin, née Pettibone
  • Concetta Marino
  • Constance Delafield
  • Contessa di Montefalchi, née Bigelow
  • Cormac Haggerty
  • Cornelia "Nellie" Schenck
  • Cornelia Ten Eyck
  • Cornelius "Neil" Hasbrouck
  • Cornelius Banks Jr.
  • Cornelius Mulvaney
  • Cornelius Wetherill Jr.
  • Countess Waldersheim, née Strickland
  • Cyrus Boggs II
  • Cyrus Hadley Boggs

D: 22 names

  • Daisy Kissam
  • De Lancey Vreeland
  • Delia Rafferty
  • Della Conroy
  • Dennis Culhane
  • Dennis O'Halloran Jr.
  • Dexter Oakes Rawlins
  • Dickie Bleecker
  • Dolly Tuckerman
  • Domenico Gallo
  • Dora Bernstein
  • Dorothea "Dolly" Haight
  • Dorothea Pfister
  • Dr. Alonzo Whitfield
  • Dr. Eunice Hawkins Lyle
  • Dr. Frederick Pettiford
  • Dr. Julian Whitfield Jr.
  • Dr. Marcus Hollis Turner
  • Dr. Oliver Jackson Tate
  • Dr. Samuel Peyton Hollis
  • Dugald McPhee
  • Duncan Opdyke

E: 28 names

  • Edgar Vosburgh
  • Edith Tuckerman
  • Edward Petrie
  • Edwin Carter Dorsey, Esq.
  • Effie, Lady Pellingham
  • Egerton Brevoort
  • Elbridge Sturgis
  • Eleanor Schenck
  • Elias Crane Jr.
  • Elihu B. Trowbridge
  • Eliphalet Roscoe Tuttle
  • Eliza Proctor Hale
  • Elizabeth Gubbins
  • Ellen Hanrahan
  • Elmer J. Hotchkiss
  • Émile Fournier
  • Emilie Hartmann
  • Emily Dobson
  • Emma Olmstead
  • Emma Partridge
  • Enoch Ballard Spicer
  • Ephraim Goodspeed Jr.
  • Erastus Tobias Grubb
  • Erzsebet Toth
  • Estelle, Baroness Aldermere
  • Eugene Polhemus II
  • Eugenia Satterlee
  • Ezekiel Strickland

F: 15 names

  • Fannie Moskowitz
  • Fergus Dalrymple Reid
  • Filomena Greco
  • Florian Delacroix Hébert
  • Flossie McArdle
  • Frances Woolsey
  • Francis Sturgis II
  • Frank Dillingham
  • Fräulein Amalie Roth
  • Freddie Opdyke
  • Frederic "Freddie" Remsen
  • Frederic Wynkoop
  • Frederick Noakes
  • Frieda Kessler
  • Friedrich Lutz

G: 11 names

  • Gennaro Coppola
  • George Tanner
  • Georgia Anne Peyton
  • Georgiana Ten Broeck
  • Gerrit Van Vechten
  • Giuseppina Rinaldi
  • Gottlieb Hartung
  • Gräfin von Eschenfeld, née Hartung
  • Gussie Blau
  • Gussie Perlman
  • Gustaf Sandberg

H: 29 names

  • Hamilton Beekman III
  • Hannah Loughlin
  • Harold Thorndike Jr.
  • Harriet Lyle Turner
  • Harriet Zabriskie
  • Harry Van Alstyne
  • Harvey Lippincott
  • Hattie Pearl Robinson
  • Hattie Schroeder
  • Heinrich Krebs
  • Henrietta Brinckerhoff
  • Henry "Harry" Wyckoff
  • Herbert Hasbrouck Jr.
  • Hester Vanderpoel
  • Hezekiah Lathrop Munn
  • Hilda Lindqvist
  • Hiram Strunk
  • Hon. Cyrus P. Langdon
  • Hon. Dennis F. Scully
  • Hon. Lucius T. Barnaby
  • Hon. Mrs. Cecil Dunthorpe
  • Hon. Patrick J. Dolan
  • Honora Tierney
  • Horace Pettibone Stokes
  • Horace Stokes Jr.
  • Howland Prime
  • Hugh McGonigle
  • Hulda Bergstrom
  • Hyman Shapiro

I: 8 names

  • Ida, Countess of Holmcastle
  • Imogen Bowne
  • Ingeborg Dahl
  • Ingrid Svensson
  • Ira Bascom Oliphant
  • Isabel Cortelyou
  • Isaiah Thornton Johnson
  • Isidor Lefkowitz

J: 22 names

  • J. Frank Dillon
  • Jabez Thornhill Cobb
  • Jack Halloran
  • Jacob Margolis
  • Jacobus Van Vechten III
  • Jadwiga Nowak
  • James Garrity
  • James Oglesby
  • Janos Kovacs
  • Jennie, Viscountess Stanwyke
  • Jeremiah O'Halloran
  • Jerome Buckminster
  • Jerome Opdyke Jr.
  • Johanna Twomey
  • Josef Prochazka
  • Joseph Tibbs
  • Josiah Bell Cartwright
  • Josiah Cartwright Sr.
  • Jotham Kneeland
  • Judge Aloysius Keane
  • Julia Bogert
  • Julius Weatherbee

K: 6 names

  • Kari Halvorsen
  • Katharina Bauer
  • Katharine "Kitty" Bowne
  • Katharine Wyckoff
  • Katie Mulrooney
  • Kitty Suydam

L: 28 names

  • Lady Edgar Marchmere
  • Lady Hubert Thaxmere
  • Lady Strathallard, née MacQuarrie
  • Lady Thornleigh, née Stokes
  • Lars Gunderson
  • Lavinia, Duchess of Harrowmere
  • Lawrence "Larry" Underhill
  • Lawrence Jackson, Esq.
  • Lawrence Ludlow III
  • Leander McKelvey
  • Leila Embury
  • Lemuel P. Dinwiddie
  • Lena Hoffmeister
  • Lewis Hampton Carter
  • Lispenard Kip
  • Livingston Van Zandt
  • Lizzie Shaughnessy
  • Lloyd Thorndike
  • Lorenzo Dow Kilgore
  • Lottie Haskins
  • Louisa "Lulu" Embury
  • Louisa Swartwout
  • Lucius Bigelow III
  • Lucretia Minturn
  • Ludwig Rosenthal Baum
  • Luigi Bevilacqua
  • Lulu Pfeiffer
  • Lulu Vanderpoel

M: 152 names

  • Mabel, Lady Kelmsworth
  • Maggie Doolan
  • Mamie Delafield
  • Mamie Schultz
  • Marcellus Bigelow
  • Marchesa di San Varo, née Pomeroy
  • Margaret Dooley
  • Margarethe Scholl
  • Margaretta "Daisy" Gansevoort
  • Margaretta Cuyler
  • Maria Onderdonk
  • Marie Cermak
  • Marion Wainwright
  • Marquise de Saint-Aubrac, née Boggs
  • Mary "Mamie" Woolsey
  • Mary Ellen Cassidy
  • Matilda Thompkins
  • Max Pincus
  • Mendel Horowitz
  • Michael Dunphy
  • Minna Vogel
  • Minnie Feeney
  • Miss Adeline Turner
  • Miss Augusta Stokes
  • Miss Beulah Whitfield
  • Miss Blanche Bigelow
  • Miss Brinckerhoff
  • Miss Cartwright
  • Miss Charlotte Gaines
  • Miss Clara Thorpe
  • Miss Cortelyou
  • Miss Cuyler
  • Miss Delafield
  • Miss Effie Boggs
  • Miss Ernestine Robinson
  • Miss Estelle Rawlins
  • Miss Gansevoort
  • Miss Goodspeed

M, continued

  • Miss Hepworth
  • Miss Ida Pomeroy
  • Miss Jennie McCandless
  • Miss Klopfer
  • Miss Lavinia Beekman
  • Miss Lucinda Coleman
  • Miss Mabel Drake
  • Miss Marbury
  • Miss Minturn
  • Miss Nell Garrity
  • Miss Nora O'Halloran
  • Miss Onderdonk
  • Miss Pettibone
  • Miss Prewitt
  • Miss Quayle
  • Miss Satterlee
  • Miss Schieffelin
  • Miss Strickland
  • Miss Sturtevant
  • Miss Susan Langley
  • Miss Swartwout
  • Miss Ten Eyck
  • Miss Van Alstyne
  • Miss Vanderpoel
  • Miss Verplanck
  • Miss Viola Mosley
  • Miss Woolsey
  • Miss Wyckoff
  • Miss Zabriskie
  • Mlle. Célestine Aubert
  • Mollie Eisner
  • Montgomery "Monty" Prime
  • Montgomery Varick
  • Monty Sturgis
  • Mortimer Quayle
  • Morton Tillinghast
  • Mr. and Mrs. Archibald Reid
  • Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Minturn

M, continued

  • Mr. and Mrs. Casper Schenck
  • Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Satterlee
  • Mr. and Mrs. Gerard Van Alstyne
  • Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Pettibone
  • Mr. and Mrs. Leopold Baum
  • Mr. and Mrs. Percival Ten Eyck
  • Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Delafield
  • Mr. and Mrs. Walter Dinwiddie
  • Mr. Pennyfeather
  • Mr. Tredgold
  • Mr. Wetherby
  • Mrs. Abraham Remsen
  • Mrs. Alexander Vreeland
  • Mrs. Aloysius Tighe
  • Mrs. Anson Drake
  • Mrs. Augustus Peyton
  • Mrs. Bascombe
  • Mrs. Beekman Varick
  • Mrs. Clarence Van Brunt
  • Mrs. Cornelius Wetherill
  • Mrs. Cyrus Boggs
  • Mrs. Cyrus Tolliver
  • Mrs. Dennis O'Halloran
  • Mrs. Dexter Rawlins
  • Mrs. Edwin Dorsey
  • Mrs. Elias Crane
  • Mrs. Eliphalet Tuttle
  • Mrs. Ephraim Goodspeed
  • Mrs. Erastus Grubb
  • Mrs. Ernst Hartung
  • Mrs. Eugene Polhemus
  • Mrs. Ferdinand Quayle
  • Mrs. Fergus Reid
  • Mrs. Francis Sturgis
  • Mrs. Garret Van Pelt
  • Mrs. Gideon Kneeland
  • Mrs. Hamilton Beekman
  • Mrs. Harold Thorndike

M, continued

  • Mrs. Herbert Hasbrouck
  • Mrs. Horace Stokes
  • Mrs. Irving Kip
  • Mrs. Isaiah Johnson
  • Mrs. Jacob Strunk
  • Mrs. Jacobus Van Vechten
  • Mrs. Jerome Opdyke
  • Mrs. Josiah Banks
  • Mrs. Josiah Cartwright
  • Mrs. Julian Van Zandt
  • Mrs. Lawrence Ludlow
  • Mrs. Lemuel Dinwiddie
  • Mrs. Lucius Bigelow
  • Mrs. Malcolm MacQuarrie
  • Mrs. Marcus Turner
  • Mrs. Nathaniel Sturtevant
  • Mrs. Newbold Kissam
  • Mrs. Oakhurst
  • Mrs. Obadiah Strickland
  • Mrs. Oliver Pell
  • Mrs. Orlando Marbury
  • Mrs. Percy Tillinghast
  • Mrs. Peter Suydam
  • Mrs. Robert Van Dusen
  • Mrs. Rudolph Klopfer
  • Mrs. Rufus McCandless
  • Mrs. Rutherford Brevoort
  • Mrs. Sidney Underhill
  • Mrs. Silas Thorpe
  • Mrs. Stuyvesant Van Wyck
  • Mrs. Sylvanus Rudd
  • Mrs. Tewksbury
  • Mrs. Theodore Van Ness
  • Mrs. Walter Coleman
  • Mrs. Washington Pomeroy
  • Mrs. Woodbury Wynkoop
  • Mrs. Worthington Hegeman
  • Mrs. Zenas Ferris

N: 10 names

  • Nahum Sprague Eddy
  • Nathalie Schieffelin
  • Nathan Feinberg
  • Nellie Wainwright
  • Nettie Prouty
  • Newbold Kissam Jr.
  • Nicholas Van Brunt
  • Nils Hedlund
  • Nora Gilhooly
  • Nora, Lady Glenmorran

O: 6 names

  • Obadiah Strickland Sr.
  • Ogden Polhemus
  • Oliver Pell Jr.
  • Ophelia Carter
  • Orlando Finch Marbury
  • Otto Brandeis

P: 11 names

  • Pasquale De Luca
  • Patrick Aloysius Donnelly
  • Patrick Monaghan
  • Peter Bleecker Suydam
  • Peter Suydam Jr.
  • Philip Van Dusen
  • Phineas J. Cutter
  • Principessa di Castelvero, née Thorpe
  • Prof. Cyrus Tolliver
  • Prof. Leander Hawkins
  • Prof. Oscar Langley

R: 21 names

  • Rebecca Gittelson
  • Reggie Thorndike
  • Reginald "Reggie" Ten Eyck
  • Reginald Pell
  • Rev. Amos Walker Gaines
  • Rev. Dr. Theophilus Mosley
  • Rev. Elias Thompkins
  • Rev. Josiah P. Banks
  • Rev. Nathaniel Dorsey
  • Robert Ashby Harris
  • Rosalie Van Horne
  • Rosaria Lombardi
  • Rose Kilbride
  • Rosetta Langley
  • Roswell Dyer Flagg
  • Rudolph Klopfer Jr.
  • Rufus Coleman Walker
  • Rufus K. McCandless
  • Rufus McCandless Jr.
  • Rutgers Van Pelt
  • Rutherford Brevoort Sr.

S: 17 names

  • Sadie Finkelstein
  • Sadie Marchetti
  • Salvatore Imparato
  • Sarah Devlin
  • Schuyler Van Wyck
  • Selma Nyberg
  • Senator Jeremiah Foyle
  • Sergeant Owen Brannock
  • Sidney Haight Underhill
  • Sigrid Holmgren
  • Silas Rockwell Thorpe
  • Silas Thorpe Jr.
  • Simeon Goodspeed
  • Sophia Voorhees
  • Stanislaw Wojcik
  • Stuyvesant Van Wyck Jr.
  • Sylvanus Peabody Rudd

T: 10 names

  • Teddy Van Ness
  • Teresa Mancuso
  • Tessie Van Horne
  • Thaddeus Crane
  • Theodora Van Nostrand
  • Theodore Van Ness II
  • Theresa "Tessie" Ludlow
  • Thomas Kinnane
  • Timothy Brophy
  • Tottie Minturn

V: 4 names

  • Vaclav Novak
  • Valentine Hegeman
  • Vicomtesse de Brissaye, née Drake
  • Vincenzo Caruso

W: 14 names

  • W. H. Tredwell
  • Walter Jefferson Coleman
  • Walter Mumford
  • Washington Irby Pomeroy
  • Wendelin Schaefer
  • Wilhelm Schoenfeld
  • William Tansey
  • William Wiggins
  • Winifred "Winnie" Howland
  • Winifred Geraghty
  • Winifred Sloat
  • Winnie Aspinwall
  • Winthrop Hasbrouck
  • Wojciech Mazur

Y: 1 name

  • Yetta Rabinowitz

Z: 1 name

  • Zenas Whitcomb Ferris