Mayan Name Generator

Maya names span three thousand years and several languages, so it helps to know which layer you are drawing from. Classic-period royal names, read from carved monuments, are stacked strings of god names and animal titles: K'inich Janaab' Pakal (Radiant Flower Shield), Yax K'uk' Mo' (First Quetzal Macaw), Itzamnaaj B'alam (Shield Jaguar), Yuknoom Ch'een. Rulers frequently used K'inich (sun-faced) as a prefix and Chan (sky or snake), B'alam (jaguar), K'awiil (lightning god) and Ajaw (lord) as building blocks. Royal women carried the prefix Ix (lady): Ix K'abel, Ix Sak K'uk'.

Calendar names are the second layer. In the K'iche' highlands, and in the Popol Vuh, people were named for the day of the 260-day Tzolk'in on which they were born, so a name is a number from one to thirteen plus a day sign: Jun Ajpu (One Blowgunner), Wuqub' Kame (Seven Death), Oxib' Kej (Three Deer, the K'iche' king who faced the Spanish), Kaji' Imox. The Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque, the creator pair Xmucane and Xpiyacoc, and the lords of Xibalba come from this tradition.

The third layer is living Maya names. Around six million Maya people speak some thirty Mayan languages today, and Yucatec surnames like Canul, Pech, Chan, Uc, Poot, May, Cauich and Dzul, or K'iche' surnames like Tzul, Cojtí, Ixchop and Tzoc, are as common in Yucatán and Guatemala as García is elsewhere. Popular modern given names such as Itzel, Ixchel, Nicté, Zazil and Balam revive classical vocabulary and pair naturally with those surnames.