Gold Rush Name Generator

Forty-niners, Klondike stampeders and diggers

Real-World Names & CulturesPart of: real-world name generators500 names

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Generate gold rush names from California in 1849 to the Klondike of 1898: period-correct prospectors and their wives, Cornish and Chinese miners, camp nicknames like Sourdough Sam, real historical figures, and the claims and diggings they worked.

About gold rush names

The people who rushed to the California goldfields in 1849, to Victoria in the 1850s, and to the Klondike in 1897 were mostly young men born in the 1810s and 1820s, so they carried that generation's names: Old Testament and classical first names like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hezekiah and Cornelius on top of New England surnames such as Stoddard, Whipple and Peabody. The camps were also international: Cornish hard-rock miners ("Cousin Jacks") brought names like Trewhella and Nankervis; Irish, German, Chilean, Sonoran, French and Hawaiian miners worked alongside them; and Chinese miners were recorded in the Cantonese style of the time, often as Ah Sing or Wong Kee.

The other ingredient is the camp nickname. A man known only as Dutch Pete, Sourdough Sam or Three-Fingered Jack fits the record better than a full name, and the Klondike added its own slang: a cheechako was a newcomer, a sourdough had survived a winter. Towns and claims got the same rough humor, which is why the list includes Rough and Ready, Whiskey Flat, You Bet and Murderers Bar alongside the Mother Lode and Bonanza Creek.

Real figures such as Sam Brannan, Nellie Cashman and Skookum Jim Mason are mixed with invented but period-correct names, so you can cast a miner, a claim-jumper, a dance-hall owner or a whole mining company.

How to choose gold rush names

  • Pick the rush first. California (1849) names lean New England and Southern; Victoria (1851) adds English, Irish and Scots diggers; the Klondike (1897) adds Scandinavians, Canadians and Yukon First Nations guides.
  • Give a minor character a camp nickname instead of a full name. Dutch Pete or Whiskey Bill is what a miner would actually have been called at a claim.
  • Avoid names that only became popular after 1880. A forty-niner is a Josiah, Amos or Hiram, not a Colt, Wyatt or Jace.
  • Pair a gold rush person with a gold rush place. Rich Bar, Poker Flat and Eldorado Creek are real-sounding settings that instantly date a scene.
  • For Chinese, Mexican, Cornish or Hawaiian miners, use authentic names of that community rather than generic Anglo ones; the camps were far more diverse than Westerns usually show.

Frequently asked questions

What kind of names did gold rush miners actually have?

Most forty-niners were born between 1810 and 1830, so Biblical and classical first names (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hezekiah, Cornelius) paired with English, Scots-Irish and German surnames were the norm. Cornish, Irish, Chinese, Chilean, Mexican and Hawaiian miners were also common and used names from their own communities.

Does this generator cover the Klondike and Australian gold rushes too?

Yes. Alongside 1849 California it includes Klondike stampeders like George Carmack, Skookum Jim and Belinda Mulrooney, Klondike slang names (Sourdough, Cheechako), and Victorian-era Australian diggers and goldfields such as Ballarat and Peter Lalor of the Eureka Stockade.

Why are there place and claim names in the list?

Mining camps and claims were named with the same humor as the miners' nicknames, and they make good setting names or even character nicknames. Rough and Ready, Hangtown, Whiskey Flat, You Bet and Murderers Bar were all real California camps.

Can I use the real historical names?

Historical figures like Sam Brannan, Nellie Cashman or Soapy Smith are public record and fine to reference in fiction, school projects or games, but for an original character choose one of the invented names or adapt a nickname so you are not rewriting a real person's life.

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All 500 gold rush 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

  • Abigail Newhall
  • Abner Wheelock
  • Absalom Pike
  • Achsah Doane
  • Adelaide Hawkins
  • Adeline Fenner
  • Adolphus Sutro
  • Agnes Galbraith
  • Agoston Haraszthy
  • Ah Lum
  • Ah Sing
  • Ah Toy
  • Alasdair Campbell
  • Alexander Pantages
  • Almira Tuttle
  • Almon Redfield
  • Alonzo Pickering
  • Alpheus Kittredge
  • Alvin Coffey
  • Ambrose Frye
  • Amelia Weidner
  • Amos Tredwell
  • Anders Lindqvist
  • Angels Camp
  • Angus McAllister
  • Anna Kessler
  • Annie Cavanagh
  • Ansel Foote
  • Anson Whitcomb
  • Antoine Gautier
  • Anton Kreutzer
  • Antonio Coronel
  • Archibald Galbraith
  • Arizona Charlie Meadows
  • Arvilla Blodgett
  • Asa Coffin
  • Asenath Munson
  • August Ziegler
  • Augusta Drinkwater

B: 23 names

  • Ballarat Diggings
  • Baltasar Contreras
  • Barnabas Lockhart
  • Bartholomew Kenny
  • Bartholomew Tierney
  • Barzillai Hawes
  • Belinda Mulrooney
  • Ben Rosewarne
  • Benjamin Tredway
  • Bernardo Yorba
  • Bertha Ziegler
  • Biddy Mason
  • Big Alex McDonald
  • Big Annie Macready
  • Bill Polkinghorne
  • Black Bart Boles
  • Blue Lead Mine
  • Bonanza Bess
  • Bonanza Creek
  • Brendan Doolin
  • Bret Harte
  • Bridget Mulcahy
  • Broken Shovel Bar

C: 27 names

  • Calico Kate
  • Calixte Dupuis
  • Calvin Truesdell
  • Captain John Coffee Hays
  • Caroline Tinker
  • Catherine Doolin
  • Celestine Gautier
  • Charles Crocker
  • Charlotte Lamphere
  • Chauncey Bascom
  • Cherokee Bob
  • Chin Lung
  • Chinese Camp
  • Christian Hauptmann
  • Clementine Ward
  • Collis Huntington
  • Comstock Lode
  • Concepcion Yorba
  • Conrad Weidner
  • Cordelia Peabody
  • Cornelius Flanagan
  • Cornelius Haskell
  • Cornelius Moynihan
  • Cousin Jack Trewin
  • Cousin Jenny Pascoe
  • Cynthia Hollister
  • Cyrus Alcott

D: 23 names

  • Dance Hall Dora
  • Daniel Hogan
  • Daniel Leavitt
  • Daniel Rodgers
  • Darius Goodenough
  • Dawson Charlie
  • Dawson City
  • Delia Haggerty
  • Dennis Boyle
  • Desire Bunker
  • Diamond Tooth Gertie
  • Dick Trevithick
  • Dinah Coffey
  • Dolores Ramirez
  • Dolphus Cole
  • Domingo Ghirardelli
  • Dorcas Cutler
  • Drusilla Pomeroy
  • Dry Diggings
  • Duncan Ferguson
  • Dutch Kate
  • Dutch Pete
  • Dutchman's Hope

E: 37 names

  • Ebenezer Sloan
  • Edmond Wysinger
  • Edward Gallagher
  • Edward Hargraves
  • Edwin Trethewey
  • Elbridge Whitney
  • Eldorado Creek
  • Eleazar Paulding
  • Electa Goodrich
  • Elias Bigelow
  • Elias Vivian
  • Elihu Kimball
  • Eliza Farnham
  • Eliza Pickering
  • Elkanah Doane
  • Ellen Clacy
  • Ellen Costigan
  • Elspeth Lennox
  • Emanuel Quivers
  • Emeline Bliss
  • Emperor Norton
  • Empire Mine
  • Enoch Farrow
  • Enos Marsden
  • Ephraim Tuttle
  • Erastus Culver
  • Ernst Vogel
  • Esteban Valdivia
  • Ethel Berry
  • Étienne Beauchamp
  • Eudora Hatch
  • Euphemia Nankervis
  • Euphemia Thayer
  • Ewan Kincaid
  • Experience Soule
  • Ezekiel Pratt
  • Ezra Tinker

F: 16 names

  • Faustino Ybarra
  • Fergus Strachan
  • Fiddletown
  • Flora McAllister
  • Fong Ching
  • Forty-Mile Frank
  • Francis Hosking
  • Francis Kehoe
  • Francisca Valdivia
  • Francisco Bustamante
  • François Leduc
  • Frank Reid
  • Franklin Soule
  • Frederika Steinmetz
  • Freeman Tilden
  • Friedrich Eberhardt

G: 13 names

  • George Carmack
  • George Holbrook
  • Gideon Marsh
  • Gideon Pendarves
  • Giovanni Pellegrini
  • Giuseppe Bonavita
  • Golden Eagle Claim
  • Greenhorn Gulch
  • Gretchen Hauser
  • Grizzly Adams
  • Grizzly Flats
  • Guadalupe Alviso
  • Gustav Reinhardt

H: 33 names

  • Hamish Lennox
  • Hangtown
  • Hangtown Harry
  • Hardrock Hank
  • Hardscrabble Diggings
  • Harlan Pomeroy
  • Harriet Burbank
  • Harriet Pullen
  • Harrison Winslow
  • Harry Pascoe
  • Hattie Lockhart
  • Heinrich Steinmetz
  • Henri Vachon
  • Henry Comstock
  • Henry Nancarrow
  • Henry Ransom
  • Henry Wells
  • Hepsibah Tyler
  • Hepzibah Greenleaf
  • Hermann Lindauer
  • Hezekiah Burdett
  • Hezekiah Rowe
  • Hippolyte Mercier
  • Hiram Eustis
  • Hiram Parmelee
  • Hong Yen Chang
  • Honora Quigley
  • Horace Belknap
  • Hosea Lamb
  • Hugh Cavanagh
  • Huldah Sibley
  • Humbug Creek
  • Hungry Hollow

I: 7 names

  • Iain Baird
  • Ignacio Urrea
  • Ira Stebbins
  • Irish Molly Hogan
  • Isaac Newhall
  • Isabella Campbell
  • Isaiah Rowe

J: 45 names

  • Jabez Lamphere
  • Jack London
  • Jack Trewhella
  • Jackass Hill
  • Jacob Schuler
  • Jago Trewin
  • James Ballou
  • James Brennan
  • James Lick
  • James Marshall
  • Jan Nankervis
  • Jane Truesdell
  • Janet MacTavish
  • Jean-Baptiste Ducharme
  • Jedediah Crowe
  • Jemima Clapp
  • Jeremiah Stoddard
  • Jerusha Abbott
  • Jessie Ferguson
  • Jesus Valenzuela
  • Jethro Bassett
  • Jim Beckwourth
  • Jim Savage
  • Joaquin Murrieta
  • Joe Ladue
  • Joe Trembath
  • Joel Sibley
  • Johann Hauser
  • Johanna Brennan
  • John Basson Humffray
  • John Bidwell
  • John Studebaker
  • John Sutter
  • John Vivian
  • Jonah Trezise
  • Jonas Rathbone
  • Josefa Segovia
  • Joseph Kettering
  • Josephine Ducharme
  • Josephus Wainwright
  • Josiah Bolitho
  • Josiah Whipple
  • Juana Briones
  • Jules Marchand
  • Julia Wainwright

K: 10 names

  • Karl Brandt
  • Kate Carmack
  • Kate Hennessey
  • Keoni Kealoha
  • Keturah Tonkin
  • Keziah Bartlett
  • Kitto Penrose
  • Klondike Kate Rockwell
  • Klondike Mike Mahoney
  • Knud Halvorsen

L: 32 names

  • Lai Chun-chuen
  • Lars Bjornstad
  • Last Chance Claim
  • Lavinia Prescott
  • Lawrence Dwyer
  • Lee Yick
  • Leland Stanford
  • Lemuel Folger
  • Levi Hatch
  • Levi Strauss
  • Lois Finney
  • Lola Montez
  • Long Tom Larkin
  • Loreta Velasquez
  • Lotta Crabtree
  • Louis Tremblay
  • Louisa Eberhardt
  • Louisa Hotchkiss
  • Louise Clappe
  • Loveday Angove
  • Lovina Hubbard
  • Lucinda Fairchild
  • Lucius Hotchkiss
  • Lucky Baldwin
  • Lucky Strike Claim
  • Lucretia Hopkins
  • Lucy Ann Hammond
  • Ludwig Hoffmann
  • Lurana Sprague
  • Luther Hale
  • Luzena Wilson
  • Lyman Pettengill

M: 38 names

  • Madame Moustache
  • Maggie Flanagan
  • Mahala Kelsey
  • Malcolm MacTavish
  • Malvina Treat
  • Manuel Alviso
  • Marcellus Dodd
  • Margaret Kimball
  • Marguerite Leduc
  • Maria Ignacia Bale
  • Mariano Vallejo
  • Marie Lalande
  • Mark Hopkins
  • Mark Tonkin
  • Martha Black
  • Martha Dodd
  • Martin Scanlon
  • Martin Sturtevant
  • Mary Ann Goodenough
  • Mary Ellen Pleasant
  • Mary Tierney
  • Matthew Jenkin
  • Mattie Sloan
  • Mehitable Crouch
  • Mercy Holbrook
  • Micah Greenleaf
  • Michael Donnelly
  • Mifflin Gibbs
  • Minerva Stiles
  • Mordecai Beede
  • Mormon Island
  • Morwenna Bolitho
  • Moses Kelsey
  • Moses Rodgers
  • Mother Lode
  • Mountain Charley
  • Mudflat Mike
  • Murderers Bar

N: 14 names

  • Nancy Prindle
  • Narcisse Fortier
  • Nathan Wetherbee
  • Ned Tremayne
  • Nehemiah Pendleton
  • Nellie Cashman
  • Nelson Prindle
  • Newell Ingalls
  • Ng Poon Chew
  • Nils Petersen
  • Noah Chittenden
  • Nome
  • Nora Donnelly
  • Nugget Nell Hanley

O: 12 names

  • Obadiah Fenn
  • Obed Starbuck
  • Old Pancake
  • Ole Gundersen
  • Olive Root
  • Oliver Thayer
  • Orpha Dunham
  • Orphan Boy Mine
  • Orrin Pettibone
  • Orson Tilley
  • Otto Dietrich
  • Owen Quigley

P: 29 names

  • Pablo Gutierrez
  • Paddy Mulcahy
  • Parthenia Osgood
  • Patience Ransom
  • Patrick Costigan
  • Pauline Hoffmann
  • Pedro Araya
  • Pegleg Smith
  • Peleg Macy
  • Permelia Judd
  • Peter Burnett
  • Peter Lalor
  • Peter Lassen
  • Peter Lester
  • Peter Monaghan
  • Peter Trezise
  • Philander Gage
  • Philena Stoddard
  • Phineas Coombs
  • Pickaxe Pat
  • Pierre Lalande
  • Placer Pete
  • Pleasant Gibbs
  • Poker Alice Ivers
  • Poker Flat
  • Polly Chittenden
  • Poverty Flat
  • Prince Gardner
  • Prudence Mayhew

Q: 1 name

  • Quong Tart

R: 23 names

  • Rachel Rathbone
  • Raffaello Carboni
  • Ramon Gandara
  • Ramona Carrillo
  • Ransom Cutler
  • Rattlesnake Bar
  • Rattlesnake Dick Barter
  • Rebecca Wheelock
  • Red Dog
  • Reuben Haggerty
  • Reuben Swain
  • Rhoda Lamson
  • Rich Bar
  • Richard Angove
  • Robert Dunbar
  • Robert Henderson
  • Rodolphus Burnham
  • Rosanna Tewksbury
  • Rosendo Fuentes
  • Rough and Ready
  • Roxana Treadwell
  • Royal Bartlett
  • Rufus Tibbetts

S: 30 names

  • Sabra Boardman
  • Sam Brannan
  • Sam Chenoweth
  • Sam Steele
  • Samuel Larkin
  • Sarah Hazeltine
  • Seth Hussey
  • Seth Osgood
  • Seweryn Korzelinski
  • Shirt Tail Canyon
  • Shubael Coffin
  • Silas Penhallow
  • Simeon Hubbard
  • Sixteen-to-One Mine
  • Skagway
  • Skagway Sid
  • Skookum Jim Mason
  • Sluice Box Sally
  • Snowshoe Thompson
  • Soapy Smith
  • Solomon Tewksbury
  • Sophronia Ayers
  • Sourdough Sal
  • Sourdough Sam
  • Stephen Blodgett
  • Stephen Rule
  • Susannah Stebbins
  • Sutter's Mill
  • Swiftwater Bill Gates
  • Sylvanus Gould

T: 20 names

  • Tappan Adney
  • Temperance Whitcomb
  • Tex Rickard
  • Thaddeus Callaghan
  • Thaddeus Starbuck
  • Thankful Leavitt
  • Thankful Pease
  • Thomas Burbank
  • Thomas Rafferty
  • Three-Fingered Jack
  • Tiburcio Vasquez
  • Timbuctoo
  • Timothy Hennessey
  • Tin Pan Tom
  • Tirzah Kellogg
  • Titus Drinkwater
  • Tom Tregaskis
  • Tristram Folger
  • Truman Ayers
  • Tryphena Gould

U: 1 name

  • Uriah Peabody

V: 3 names

  • Valentine Worth
  • Vesta Kingsbury
  • Victorine Beauchamp

W: 16 names

  • Walter Pengelly
  • Washboard Winnie
  • Wealthy Mitchell
  • Whiskey Bill
  • Whiskey Flat
  • Widow's Purse Claim
  • Wilbur Crandall
  • Wilhelm Kessler
  • Wilhelmina Brandt
  • Wilhelmina Schuster
  • Will Polglase
  • William Fargo
  • William Hazeltine
  • William Ogilvie
  • Wong Kee
  • Wyatt Earp

Y: 4 names

  • Yankee Jim
  • Yee Ah Tye
  • Yellow Jacket Mine
  • You Bet

Z: 4 names

  • Zachariah Bliss
  • Zebedee Pascoe
  • Zebulon Hitchcock
  • Zilpha Coombs