Greek Female Name Generator

Greek women are traditionally named after a grandmother, and since grandmothers were named after saints, a handful of names dominate: Maria, Eleni, Katerina, Georgia, Sofia, Vasiliki, Dimitra, Konstantina, Anastasia and Evangelia together cover a large share of all Greek women. Each formal name has one or more daily short forms that are used far more than the baptismal version. Vasiliki becomes Vicky or Vaso, Paraskevi is Voula or Evi, Panagiota is Giota, Nota or Toula, Konstantina is Dina or Nantia, Kalliopi is Popi and Styliani is Stella.

Since the 19th century families have also revived names from antiquity and tragedy, so Ismini, Antigoni, Myrto, Danai, Nefeli, Ariadni, Ilektra and Persefoni are normal modern names, more common in urban and educated families. Compound names like Maria-Eleni or Anna-Maria are a recent trend.

The surname is what most people get wrong. Greek women carry the genitive form of the family name, so the daughter of Mr Papadopoulos is Papadopoulou, of Georgiadis is Georgiadou, of Makris is Makri and of Papadakis is Papadaki. The endings still point to a region: -opoulou is Peloponnesian, -aki is Cretan, -idou is Pontic or northern, -atou is Ionian, -oglou comes from Asia Minor families. Every name here uses the standard Latin transliteration found on Greek passports and in English-language fiction.