Iranian Last Name Generator
Persian family names by suffix, city and trade
Browse 500 Iranian and Persian family names, one surname per entry: patronymics like Ahmadi, Alizadeh and Rezapour, place names like Tehrani and Shirazi, trade names like Zargar and Attar, and clan and community names such as Beiranvand, Ardalan and Hovsepian.
About Iranian last names
Family names are young in Iran. They became compulsory only in the 1920s, when every household had to register one, and most families built theirs from what was already known about them: a father's name, a home town, a trade or a title. That is why Iranian and Persian last names are so easy to read once you know the parts.
The largest group adds -i to a given name (Ahmadi, Hosseini, Karimi) or takes a longer ending: -zadeh (born of), -pour (son of), -nejad (of the line of), -nia (of the ancestry of) and the family ending -ian, as in Alizadeh, Rezapour, Alinejad, Behnia and Karimian. Place names work the same way, so Tehrani, Shirazi, Tabrizi and Esfahani say where a family came from. Trades give Zargar (goldsmith), Attar (perfumer and druggist) and Saffar (coppersmith), and old titles give Mirzaei, Khani, Vaziri and Kalantari.
The list of 500 also holds chosen names of character such as Radmanesh and Vatandoust, the clan names of Lur, Kurdish, Baluch and Turkic-speaking families (Beiranvand, Ardalan, Narouei, Baharlou), and the surnames of Iran's Armenian and Assyrian communities, such as Hovsepian and Khoshaba. Every name appears once, in one common Latin spelling.
How to choose Iranian last names
- Match the surname to the region your character comes from: Tabrizi, Shabestari or Khiabani for the Azeri northwest, Beiranvand or Sepahvand for Lorestan, Narouei or Shahbakhsh for the Baluch southeast, Gilani or Lahiji for the Caspian coast.
- A place name records where a family was from when surnames were registered, not where it lives now. A Shirazi in Tehran or a Yazdi in Mashhad is perfectly ordinary.
- Expect spelling variants outside Iran. Rezaei, Rezaie and Rezai are one name, and so are -pour and -poor or Hosseini and Husseini. Pick one spelling for a character and keep it.
- Women in Iran keep their own family name after marriage and children take the father's, so a married couple in a story will normally have two different surnames.
- If the name is for a pen name, a business or a published book, search it yourself first. Thousands of living families share most of these surnames.
Frequently asked questions
What are the most common Iranian last names?
Mohammadi, Hosseini, Ahmadi, Rezaei, Moradi, Karimi and Mousavi are among the names you meet most often, all of them built on a given name plus -i. They are in this list, together with city names such as Tehrani and Kermani and trade names such as Dehghan and Zargar.
Are Persian last names and Iranian last names the same thing?
In everyday use, yes: people who look for Persian last names and Iranian last names mean the same family names. Persian is the language most of them are built in, with endings such as -zadeh, -pour and -nejad. Iran is also home to families who speak Azeri Turkish, Kurdish, Luri, Balochi and Armenian, and the list includes their surnames too, for example Baharlou, Ardalan, Beiranvand, Narouei and Hovsepian.
What do -zadeh, -pour and -nejad mean?
All three mark descent. Zadeh means born of, pour means son of and nejad means of the line of, so Alizadeh, Alipour and Alinejad are three ways of saying that a forefather was called Ali. The shorter endings -i and -ian do the same job more loosely and mean of or belonging to.
Why do so many Iranian surnames come from cities?
Family names were adopted within a few years in the 1920s, and a home town was the easiest thing to be known by. A family that had moved from Kashan to Tehran was already called Kashani by its neighbors, and the registry wrote that down. A surname records what one household chose at the time; it does not prove anyone's ancestry or community today.
Related generators
Iranian Name Generator
Modern Persian first names and Iranian surnames
Persian Name Generator
Iranian first names and surnames, ancient and modern
Kurdish Name Generator
Authentic Kurdish first and last names from every region
Afghan Name Generator
Authentic Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek names
Azerbaijani Name Generator
Azerbaijani given names, surnames and full names
Muslim Last Name Generator
Family names from across the Muslim world
Arabic Last Name Generator
Family names from the Gulf to the Maghreb
Last Name Generator
Realistic and cool surnames for characters and stories
More like this
Belizean Last Name Generator
Kriol, Mestizo, Maya, Garifuna and Mennonite surnames
Canadian Last Name Generator
Surnames as they are found across Canada
Vietnamese Last Name Generator
Real Vietnamese family names with plain spellings
Afghan Last Name Generator
Tribal, place and chosen Afghan family names
Ancient Last Name Generator
Family, clan and dynasty names from antiquity
Anglo-Saxon Last Name Generator
Old English bynames and the surnames they became
All 500 Iranian last names
A: 40 names
- Abbasi
- Abbaspour
- Abbaszadeh
- Abrahamian
- Abrishamchi
- Afshar
- Aghaei
- Aghajani
- Aghakhani
- Ahangar
- Ahmadi
- Ahmadian
- Ahvazi
- Akbari
- Alavi
- Alavifard
- Alidoust
- Alinejad
- Alipour
- Alizadeh
- Amini
- Amiri
- Amirkhani
- Amoli
- Ansari
- Araki
- Ardabili
- Ardakani
- Ardalan
- Arjmand
- Aryanpour
- Asadi
- Asgari
- Ashtiani
- Attar
- Attari
- Avanessian
- Azad
- Azari
- Azizi
B: 35 names
- Babaei
- Babajani
- Baboli
- Baghban
- Baghdasarian
- Bagheri
- Bagherian
- Bagherzadeh
- Baharlou
- Bahraini
- Bahrami
- Bakhtiari
- Balouch
- Balouchzehi
- Banna
- Barahouei
- Barzegar
- Bayat
- Bazargan
- Bazzaz
- Behbahani
- Behfar
- Behmanesh
- Behnam
- Behnia
- Beigi
- Beiranvand
- Benyamin
- Bigdeli
- Birjandi
- Bojnourdi
- Boroujerdi
- Boushehri
- Boyerahmadi
- Bozorgmehr
C: 4 names
- Chaichi
- Chegini
- Chitsaz
- Choupani
D: 19 names
- Dabbagh
- Dabiri
- Dadgar
- Dadkhah
- Dalvand
- Danaeifard
- Daneshmand
- Daneshrad
- Daneshvar
- Daryanavard
- Dashti
- Davoudian
- Dehghan
- Dehmardeh
- Dehvari
- Delshad
- Derakhshan
- Dezfouli
- Dowlatabadi
E: 8 names
- Ebrahimi
- Emami
- Esfahani
- Esfandiari
- Eshaghian
- Eskandari
- Esmaeili
- Esmaeilzadeh
F: 12 names
- Faghihi
- Fallahi
- Farahani
- Farahmand
- Farhadian
- Farrokhnia
- Farshchi
- Fattahi
- Feyli
- Firouzabadi
- Foroughi
- Foroutan
G: 27 names
- Ghaderi
- Ghaffari
- Ghanbari
- Ghannad
- Gharabaghi
- Gharagozlou
- Ghasemi
- Ghasempour
- Ghasemzadeh
- Ghashghaei
- Ghassab
- Ghazvini
- Ghiasvand
- Gholami
- Gholampour
- Gholizadeh
- Ghomi
- Ghorbani
- Ghorbanian
- Ghoushchi
- Gilani
- Givargis
- Gohari
- Golpayegani
- Gorgani
- Gorgij
- Grigorian
H: 36 names
- Habibi
- Haddad
- Hafeznia
- Haghdoust
- Haghparast
- Haghshenas
- Hajipour
- Hajizadeh
- Hajjar
- Hakakian
- Hakim
- Hamedani
- Harirchi
- Harounian
- Haroutounian
- Hashemi
- Hashemian
- Hasheminejad
- Hassannejad
- Hassanpour
- Hassanvand
- Hassanzadeh
- Hatami
- Heidari
- Hejazi
- Hemmati
- Heravi
- Hojjati
- Homayounfar
- Honarmand
- Hosseini
- Hosseinian
- Hosseinpour
- Hosseinzadeh
- Hourami
- Hovsepian
I: 5 names
- Ilbeigi
- Ilkhani
- Irandoust
- Iranmanesh
- Irannejad
J: 15 names
- Jabbari
- Jafari
- Jafarian
- Jafarzadeh
- Jahanbakhsh
- Jahangiri
- Jahromi
- Jalali
- Jalilvand
- Jamshidi
- Jarchi
- Jarrahi
- Javaheri
- Javanmard
- Javanshir
K: 55 names
- Kaabi
- Kadkhodaei
- Kaffash
- Kafshdouz
- Kakavand
- Kalantar
- Kalantari
- Kalhor
- Kamali
- Kamangar
- Kamyab
- Kangarlou
- Karapetian
- Karbalaei
- Karimi
- Karimian
- Karimpour
- Karimzadeh
- Kashani
- Kazemi
- Kazemian
- Kazemzadeh
- Kazerouni
- Kermani
- Kermanshahi
- Keshavarz
- Ketabchi
- Khabbaz
- Khachatourian
- Khadem
- Khaledi
- Khani
- Khanlari
- Khayyat
- Khazaei
- Khezri
- Khiabani
- Khodabandehlou
- Khodadadi
- Khoei
- Khorasani
- Khorramabadi
- Khoshaba
- Khoshbakht
- Khoshdel
- Khoshnevis
- Khosravi
- Kianfar
- Kianirad
- Kohan
- Kohanim
- Kolahdouz
- Kordestani
- Kouhestani
- Kouzehgar
L: 5 names
- Lahiji
- Lankarani
- Lari
- Lashari
- Lotfi
M: 51 names
- Maddah
- Mahabadi
- Mahboubian
- Mahdavi
- Mahmoudi
- Mahmoudian
- Maleki
- Mamasani
- Manoukian
- Mansouri
- Mansourian
- Marandi
- Mardoukhi
- Mashhadi
- Mazandarani
- Mehdipour
- Mehdizadeh
- Mehraban
- Melkonian
- Memar
- Mesgar
- Meybodi
- Minassian
- Mirab
- Mirdamadi
- Mirfakhraei
- Mirhosseini
- Miri
- Mirjalili
- Mirzaei
- Moallem
- Moazzen
- Mobaraki
- Modarres
- Moghaddam
- Mohammadi
- Mohammadian
- Mohammadpour
- Mohammadzadeh
- Mohseni
- Mojtahedi
- Mokri
- Monajemi
- Monshi
- Moradi
- Moradian
- Moradpour
- Moshiri
- Mostofi
- Motevalli
- Mousavi
N: 29 names
- Naderi
- Naderian
- Naeini
- Naghash
- Naghshbandi
- Nahavandi
- Najafabadi
- Najafi
- Najafian
- Najjar
- Nakhjavani
- Narouei
- Nasiri
- Nasrabadi
- Nassaj
- Nazari
- Nazarian
- Neishabouri
- Nemati
- Nikbakht
- Nikfar
- Nikkhah
- Nikmanesh
- Niknam
- Nikoukar
- Nikzad
- Norouzi
- Nourbakhsh
- Nouri
O: 5 names
- Odisho
- Ohanian
- Omidi
- Omidvar
- Oshana
P: 10 names
- Pahlavan
- Pakdaman
- Pakravan
- Parsa
- Payandeh
- Petrossian
- Pezeshki
- Pirnazar
- Pirouz
- Pouya
R: 26 names
- Rad
- Radmanesh
- Rahbar
- Rahimi
- Rahimian
- Rahmani
- Rahmati
- Rahnama
- Rajabi
- Ramezani
- Ranjbar
- Rashidi
- Rashti
- Rasouli
- Rastegar
- Razavi
- Rezaei
- Rezaeian
- Rezapour
- Rezazadeh
- Rigi
- Roshan
- Roshanzamir
- Rostami
- Rostamian
- Roudbari
S: 67 names
- Saatchi
- Sabbagh
- Saberi
- Sabzevari
- Sadeghi
- Sadeghian
- Sadr
- Saeidnia
- Safari
- Saffar
- Sagvand
- Sahakian
- Sahhaf
- Salari
- Salehi
- Salehian
- Salimi
- Salmani
- Samadi
- Sanandaji
- Sanjabi
- Sanjarani
- Sarafraz
- Sardari
- Sarhangi
- Sarkissian
- Sarraf
- Sattari
- Sayyad
- Semnani
- Sepahvand
- Seyedi
- Shabani
S, continued
- Shabestari
- Shadman
- Shahbakhsh
- Shahbazi
- Shahi
- Shahmoradi
- Shahnavazi
- Shahraki
- Shahroudi
- Shahsavan
- Shahverdi
- Shakeri
- Shamlou
- Shamshiri
- Shariati
- Sharifi
- Sharifian
- Sharifzadeh
- Shayanfar
- Sheikhi
- Sheikholeslami
- Shekarchi
- Shirazi
- Shirvani
- Shishehgar
- Shojaei
- Shoushtari
- Simonian
- Sistani
- Sodagar
- Sohrabi
- Soleimani
- Soltani
- Soltaninejad
T: 18 names
- Tabatabaei
- Tabib
- Tabrizi
- Tafreshi
- Taghipour
- Taghizadeh
- Taheri
- Tahmasebi
- Talaei
- Taleghani
- Tamraz
- Tavakoli
- Tavakolian
- Tehrani
- Tirandaz
- Torkaman
- Torkashvand
- Tousi
V: 10 names
- Vaezi
- Vakili
- Valipour
- Valizadeh
- Vartanian
- Vatandoust
- Vatankhah
- Vatanparast
- Vaziri
- Veisi
Y: 10 names
- Yaghoubian
- Yarahmadi
- Yarahmadzehi
- Yazdanfar
- Yazdani
- Yazdanparast
- Yazdi
- Yeganeh
- Yonan
- Yousefi