Medieval German Name Generator

Medieval German naming ran on a small pool of given names and a huge variety of bynames. A handful of names dominated every town roll: Heinrich, Konrad, Johannes (Hans), Friedrich, Ulrich and Dietrich for men; Adelheid, Mechthild, Gertrud, Elisabeth, Margarethe and Agnes for women. Short forms were everyday currency, and a charter might call the same man Konrad, Cunrat or Kunz. Scribes wrote by ear, so Heinrich also appears as Hainreich and Rudolf as Ruodolf.

Bynames were not yet fixed surnames before roughly 1300, and they came from four places. Occupations gave Schmid, Weber, Pfister (a southern baker) and Schultheiß. Places gave the von names, which at first meant only where someone came from and only later marked nobility: Konrad von Würzburg was a poet, Ulrich von Hutten a knight. Nicknames gave der Lange, der Rote, Fuchs and Krumbein. City houses gave names like Hans zum Goldenen Löwen, after the painted sign on the family home. Women usually took a feminine -in ending, so a weaver's wife was Gertrud Weberin.

Choose the social tier first: a townsman gets a common given name plus a trade or nickname; a knight or churchman gets a place name; a Nuremberg burgher might carry a house sign. Then match the spelling to your century.