Mesopotamian Name Generator

Mesopotamia was never one people, so its names come in two very different flavors. The oldest are Sumerian, an isolate language with no known relatives: Gilgamesh, Enheduanna, Ur-Nammu, Gudea, Puabi. Many Sumerian names follow the pattern Ur-X ('man of the god X') or Lugal-X ('the king is X'). From about 2300 BC onward, names in Akkadian, a Semitic language, take over and remain the norm through the Babylonian and Assyrian empires. Akkadian names are tiny sentences about a god: Sin-ahhe-eriba ('Sin has replaced the brothers', the king the Bible calls Sennacherib), Nabu-kudurri-usur ('Nabu, protect my heir', Nebuchadnezzar), Ashur-bani-apli ('Ashur is creator of an heir', Ashurbanipal).

The god tells you where and when a name belongs. Ashur, Ninurta and Nusku mark an Assyrian; Marduk, Nabu and Bel a Babylonian; Shamash, Sin, Adad and Ea are common everywhere. Amorite kings of Mari and early Babylon carried names like Zimri-Lim and Yasmah-Addu, Kassite dynasts names like Kurigalzu and Burna-Buriash, and Mitanni royalty Hurrian names like Tushratta and Tadu-Hepa. Women's names use the same grammar with feminine endings or the elements Amat- ('maidservant of'), Shat- ('she of') and Erishti- ('desire of').

The list mixes kings and queens with the scribes, merchants and priestesses attested in real tablets, so you can build a whole society from Uruk to Nineveh.