Military General Name Generator

A general's name has to carry authority before the character says a word, and in practice that comes from the rank more than the name. Real generals are called Harlan Westbrook or Ousmane Coulibaly, not Blaze Thunderhawk; the gravitas comes from Lieutenant General, Field Marshal or Marshal in front of an ordinary surname. The rank also tells the reader a lot: a Brigadier General (one star) leads a brigade, a Major General a division, a Lieutenant General a corps, and a four-star General sits at the top. Britain and the Commonwealth use Brigadier without the word General and cap their system with Field Marshal, while France, Russia and Poland use Marshal as the highest rank.

Surnames do the rest. Longer names with a slightly formal ring (Pemberton, Hargreaves, Villafuerte, Strelnikov, Matsudaira) read as senior officers, while short punchy surnames fit younger field commanders. Particles such as von, de or Sir suit a nineteenth-century or alternate-history army, and the national form should match the rank: a Generalmajor belongs in a German-speaking force, a Général de division in a French one.

The list mixes modern Western generals with Latin American, Slavic, Turkish, Arab, South Asian, East Asian and African commanders, adds the British and continental titles, and finishes with High Generals, Lord Generals and Warmasters for fantasy and science-fiction armies.