Hungarian Last Name Generator

Browse 500 real Hungarian surnames, opening with the most common ones such as Nagy, Kovács, Tóth and Szabó. After those come trade names like Halász and Bognár, origin names like Debreceni and Pataki, nature names like Sólyom and Virág, and old spellings like Kováts and Eötvös.

About Hungarian last names

In Hungary the family name comes first, so Kovács Anna belongs to the Kovács family. This page lists that first half only: 500 surnames, one per entry, with every accent. It opens with about sixty of the names you meet most often, led by Nagy, Kovács, Tóth, Szabó and Horváth, and then mixes the main types. The list was screened for duplicates, so look a name up yourself if it matters for your project.

Most Hungarian surnames are plain words. Trades give Kovács (smith), Szabó (tailor), Molnár (miller), Takács (weaver) and Halász (fisherman). Qualities give Nagy (big), Kis (small), Fekete (black) and Fehér (white). The ending -i means from a place, as in Debreceni, Budai and Szilágyi. Another group records where a family was once said to come from: Tóth was an old word for a Slav, most often a Slovak, Horváth meant Croat, Németh German and Oláh Romanian. Read these as word history. A surname says nothing certain about the person who carries it today.

A small share are older spellings that families kept: -y for -i (Kisfaludy), -ffy for -fi, meaning son of (Pálffy), cz for c (Móricz) and ts for cs (Kováts). Mind the vowels too, because ö and ő, ü and ű are different letters.

How to choose Hungarian last names

• Put the surname first for a character living in Hungary: Szabó Anna, Varga Péter. In English text the order is usually flipped, so the same people become Anna Szabó and Péter Varga.
• Keep the accents. O, ó, ö and ő are four different vowels, and so are u, ú, ü and ű, which means Szűcs, Szőke and Török lose their sound when the marks are dropped.
• Pick by frequency for realism. A street of Nagy, Kovács, Tóth, Szabó and Horváth families is normal in Hungary, so save Thewrewk, Dessewffy or Eördögh for the one character whose name gets remarked on.
• Use the meaning as quiet characterization. Halász (fisherman), Vadász (hunter), Kertész (gardener), Holló (raven) and Csillag (star) are all transparent to a Hungarian reader.
• A married woman may traditionally take her husband's name with -né added, as in Kovácsné. That is a married form of his name and not a separate surname, so you will not find -né forms in the list.

Frequently asked questions

What are the most common Hungarian last names?

Nagy is usually named as the most common, followed by Kovács, Tóth, Szabó and Horváth, with Varga, Kiss, Molnár, Németh and Farkas close behind. The list opens with about sixty of the most frequent surnames in roughly that order. Rankings shift a little from one count to the next, so treat the order as approximate.

What do Hungarian surnames mean?

Most are ordinary words. Kovács is a smith, Szabó a tailor, Molnár a miller, Juhász a shepherd and Mészáros a butcher. Nagy is big, Kis is small, Fekete is black and Vörös is red, while Farkas is wolf, Sólyom is falcon and Virág is flower. A name ending in -i, such as Debreceni or Pataki, means from that place.

Why do some Hungarian names end in -y or -ffy, or use cz and ts?

They are older spellings that families kept after everyday spelling changed. Pálffy and Pálfi, Győrffy and Györfi, Kováts and Kovács are pairs of the same name, and Eötvös, Weöres and Thewrewk are old ways of writing Ötvös, Vörös and Török. A spelling on its own tells you nothing certain about a family's rank or history.

Do names like Tóth, Horváth and Németh show where a family is from?

They are word history. Tóth, Horváth, Németh, Oláh, Rácz, Lengyel and Török began centuries ago as labels for a newcomer or neighbor thought of as Slovak, Croat, German, Romanian, Serb, Polish or Turkish, and they have been ordinary Hungarian surnames ever since. Several are now among the most common names in the country, and none of them proves anything about one person's ancestry.

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